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There is a divide in science fiction and fantasy fandom, dating back to Star Trek. Media fans (fans of TV shows and movies) are on one side and lit fans (fans of books and short stories and original written works of varying kinds) are on the other, and it's not hard-and-fast but things that make huge waves in one area of fandom often don't even get noticed in the other part of fandom.
There is something huge going on in lit fandom, and it's important. So here, for your edification, is what's going on with the 2014 Hugo nominations.
First, some background. The Hugo Awards are the Oscars of the SF/F world. They're voted on every year by the members of WorldCon, the World Science Fiction Convention, and handed out there. (This year it will be in London.) Who is a member of WorldCon? Anyone who buys a membership for that year! A full membership is $205, but if you will not be attending in person you can buy a supporting membership for $40. This $40 investment will get you a) a packet with all the written works nominated for an award that year (which is a pretty good deal--5 novels, 5 novellas, 5 novellettes, and five short stories, each of them ones that a large number of fans think were the absolute best thing published the year before) and b) the right to vote for the Hugos and c) the right to nominate works for next year's awards. There is wank about this every year, just like there's always wank about the Oscars. Usually it's nothing. This year, it's bad.
Second, some background on the major players. As in all areas of life, there are some SF/F authors who are complete wastes of space on a personal level. (I can't speak to the quality of their writing as I've never read it, but they are total wastes of space as people.) In particular, Larry Correia and Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) are vocally sexist, racist, homophobic pieces of trash who think that only white men can be real SF/F fans and that while they can spew any filth they want, anybody who dares to stand up to them is a horrible person who is oppressing them. I won't be linking because y'all have google and I am not going to waste my spoons diving through their splooge for examples. (Day/Beale uses both name and pseudonym for a variety of things so if you want to look him up, google both.)
So! This year, Correia put forth a slate of twelve works (including his own most recent novel) that should get Hugos, and urging people to buy Worldcon memberships solely to nominate and then vote for those twelve works, which Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) then championed as well. All of them are what he considers "real" Science Fiction by "real SF" (read: white racist sexist asshole) authors. And seven of them got enough nominations to get on the Hugo ballot. On the bright side, there are also a lot of women authors and authors of color and people who have never gotten Hugos on the ballot, way more than normal. (On the weird side, since the last book in the Wheel of Time series came out last year and none of the books in the series have ever been nominated and all of the novels are part of a single story told in installments, the entire series has been nominated for a Hugo for Best Novel. ETA: Yes, the entire series will be part of the membership packet this year, all fourteen of them.)
Reactions:
Natalie Luhrs over at Radish Reviews
Abigail Nussbaum (one of the nominated authors) on her own blog
Blackgate.com ignores the whole Correia and Vox Day issue but raises interesting points on other things
Far Beyond Reality does a linkspam of the whole issue
John Scalzi, one of the leading writers and bloggers in lit fandom and one who is usually pretty loudspoken about being a feminist and pro-poc, says people should take the high road and vote solely on artistic merit, not the character of the author.
Shweta Narayan, Arachne Jericho, Rose Lemberg, and Kate Nepveu point out several flaws in Scalzi's position.
Daniel Libris' take.
Polenth Blake on separating writers and their work.
There's two issues with the Hugos this year. First, Correia's actions in promoting a slate of candidates, and urging all of his fans to buy memberships solely to nominate it and vote for it leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths, and would no matter what kind of a person he was. There are lots of people in literary fandom who think it's wrong to even say publicly "Hey, guess what, I'm eligible if you want to nominate me for X!" So even if Correia's actions weren't technically against the rules, it's Not Good Behavior.
More importantly, obviously, are the social justice implications: Correia and Vox Day should not get to dictate what counts as "good" science fiction and fantasy; they should not get to dictate what science fiction fandom is like and who can and can't be part of it.
I am not going to urge anyone to buy WorldCon memberships just to vote against them, but I will note that $40 for a supporting membership will get you all the nominated works, the right to vote, and the right to nominate for next year's Hugos. The packets aren't yet ready for distribution, because they only just announced who was nominated and are now approaching publishers and authors for the rights. (Also, they're doing Retro-Hugos this year; it's the 75th anniversary of the first WorldCon in 1939, but the Hugos didn't come along until later, so they're going to give out Hugos for 1939 as well as 2014. Hopefully, those works from 1938 will also be in the member packet.)
ETA: due to trolling, anonymous commenting has been disabled. If you're going to call me a racist fascist, you're going to at least need to drum up the courage to sign it.
There is something huge going on in lit fandom, and it's important. So here, for your edification, is what's going on with the 2014 Hugo nominations.
First, some background. The Hugo Awards are the Oscars of the SF/F world. They're voted on every year by the members of WorldCon, the World Science Fiction Convention, and handed out there. (This year it will be in London.) Who is a member of WorldCon? Anyone who buys a membership for that year! A full membership is $205, but if you will not be attending in person you can buy a supporting membership for $40. This $40 investment will get you a) a packet with all the written works nominated for an award that year (which is a pretty good deal--5 novels, 5 novellas, 5 novellettes, and five short stories, each of them ones that a large number of fans think were the absolute best thing published the year before) and b) the right to vote for the Hugos and c) the right to nominate works for next year's awards. There is wank about this every year, just like there's always wank about the Oscars. Usually it's nothing. This year, it's bad.
Second, some background on the major players. As in all areas of life, there are some SF/F authors who are complete wastes of space on a personal level. (I can't speak to the quality of their writing as I've never read it, but they are total wastes of space as people.) In particular, Larry Correia and Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) are vocally sexist, racist, homophobic pieces of trash who think that only white men can be real SF/F fans and that while they can spew any filth they want, anybody who dares to stand up to them is a horrible person who is oppressing them. I won't be linking because y'all have google and I am not going to waste my spoons diving through their splooge for examples. (Day/Beale uses both name and pseudonym for a variety of things so if you want to look him up, google both.)
So! This year, Correia put forth a slate of twelve works (including his own most recent novel) that should get Hugos, and urging people to buy Worldcon memberships solely to nominate and then vote for those twelve works, which Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) then championed as well. All of them are what he considers "real" Science Fiction by "real SF" (read: white racist sexist asshole) authors. And seven of them got enough nominations to get on the Hugo ballot. On the bright side, there are also a lot of women authors and authors of color and people who have never gotten Hugos on the ballot, way more than normal. (On the weird side, since the last book in the Wheel of Time series came out last year and none of the books in the series have ever been nominated and all of the novels are part of a single story told in installments, the entire series has been nominated for a Hugo for Best Novel. ETA: Yes, the entire series will be part of the membership packet this year, all fourteen of them.)
Reactions:
Natalie Luhrs over at Radish Reviews
Abigail Nussbaum (one of the nominated authors) on her own blog
Blackgate.com ignores the whole Correia and Vox Day issue but raises interesting points on other things
Far Beyond Reality does a linkspam of the whole issue
John Scalzi, one of the leading writers and bloggers in lit fandom and one who is usually pretty loudspoken about being a feminist and pro-poc, says people should take the high road and vote solely on artistic merit, not the character of the author.
Shweta Narayan, Arachne Jericho, Rose Lemberg, and Kate Nepveu point out several flaws in Scalzi's position.
Daniel Libris' take.
Polenth Blake on separating writers and their work.
There's two issues with the Hugos this year. First, Correia's actions in promoting a slate of candidates, and urging all of his fans to buy memberships solely to nominate it and vote for it leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths, and would no matter what kind of a person he was. There are lots of people in literary fandom who think it's wrong to even say publicly "Hey, guess what, I'm eligible if you want to nominate me for X!" So even if Correia's actions weren't technically against the rules, it's Not Good Behavior.
More importantly, obviously, are the social justice implications: Correia and Vox Day should not get to dictate what counts as "good" science fiction and fantasy; they should not get to dictate what science fiction fandom is like and who can and can't be part of it.
I am not going to urge anyone to buy WorldCon memberships just to vote against them, but I will note that $40 for a supporting membership will get you all the nominated works, the right to vote, and the right to nominate for next year's Hugos. The packets aren't yet ready for distribution, because they only just announced who was nominated and are now approaching publishers and authors for the rights. (Also, they're doing Retro-Hugos this year; it's the 75th anniversary of the first WorldCon in 1939, but the Hugos didn't come along until later, so they're going to give out Hugos for 1939 as well as 2014. Hopefully, those works from 1938 will also be in the member packet.)
ETA: due to trolling, anonymous commenting has been disabled. If you're going to call me a racist fascist, you're going to at least need to drum up the courage to sign it.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 01:35 am (UTC)From:It's an interesting juncture, to be sure.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 02:33 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 04:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 05:44 am (UTC)From:I thought it would be both interesting and relevant to many people who wouldn't normally pay attention.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 07:31 pm (UTC)From:(One of the 1939 retro-nominees is a book I happen to be reading right now. o-O)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 09:40 pm (UTC)From:musashi363@Yahoo.com
Date: 2014-05-29 06:25 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Hugos
Date: 2014-05-29 09:15 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Interesting
Date: 2014-05-30 04:57 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)You can find this (your) blog entry under "Shallow People, Overt Cowards, and other Internet Jesters."
Re: Hugos
Date: 2014-05-31 04:40 am (UTC)From:Googling "Larry Correia racism" the first link is to a post by Jim C. Hines, Dissecting Correia’s Critique of MacFarlane. Yes, it is by a known liberal blogger. But he both links to Correia's original post and quotes pretty much the entire thing in its entirety, with interspersed comments pointing out the sexist, racist, and other -ist stuff about it.
The second, third, and fourth links are from Correia's own website, dripping with really nasty stuff.
Googling "Theodore Beale racism" the first link is to Beale's page on rationalwiki. This is also a liberal website, but the majority of the article is quotes from Beale's own writing (mostly blog posts), complete with links to where he said it. The next several links on the google page are indeed links to liberal people complaining about him ... and every one of them that's coming up for me has links to what he actually said that got them mad.
Here are a few choice ones:
The Locus Magazine article about Beale's expulsion from the Science Fiction Writers of America for, among other things, using the SFWA's twitter feed to spew racist vitriol, among other things calling another author “half-savage.”
Here's a blogger with screenshots of Beale's original article that got linked on Twitter, which includes at least one place where he says bluntly that a non-white person is not a member of homo sapiens.