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TW for racism, genocide, and fascism.
Every year at Worldcon, there is an award given out that is not a Hugo. It is the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and it is sponsored by Dell publishing house. It's named after John W. Campbell, who edited Astounding (later Analog) Magazine for decades and in so doing shaped the field of science fiction. Campbell was one of the main people who took the pulps of the 20s and pushed and prodded the authors into becoming better writers. Having read some of the best SF/F stories of the 20s-40s, there is a HUGE difference in quality of writing (plot construction, characterization, worldbuilding, themes, eloquence and wordsmithing, everything) between the stories of the 20s and the stories of the 40s, and pretty much everyone who was involved at the time agree that John Campbell was a major part of the reason why. He was incredible at taking a new author under his wing and shaping and polishing and encouraging their writing and helping them be the best they could be. John W. Campbell was a great editor.
John W. Campbell was also a fascist. He was racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and ableist, and he was outspokenly so even for his time. He was authoritarian and distrusted democracy. He once wrote a column supporting the shooting of student protesters. He believed in eugenics. He was colonialist in the worst possible sense of the word. He shaped SF/F to fit his view of what the world should be, both by picking what authors got published and dictating what they should write. Some of the most disgustingly vile SF/F stories ever published were commissioned by him and written to his specifications, including Heinlein's infamous novel "Sixth Column" in which the "happy ending" is genocide. (He's also the reason why "hard" SF can include stuff like telepathy.)
This year's Campbell Award winner is Jeanette Ng. An Asian woman. Originally from Hong Kong, who vocally supports the Hong Kong protests. Someone Campbell would have despised and used his considerable influence to keep out of SF/F. Here's how she began her acceptance speech: "John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, is a fucking fascist." (Here's a video.) Here's a transcript, go read her speech, it is awesome and short. (And if you get to the end of the speech and wonder what "the hat thing" is, here it is. Her hat had a peacock tail, and she could trigger the tail to stand erect from the hat.)
As always, when some major (white ablebodied heterosexual male) historical person gets rightly identified as having done and said really terrible things in addition to the good things they did, there is handwringing and pushback, especially when the person pointing out the problems is a woman of color. But I am very glad that from what I can tell most people are supporting Ms. Ng. She got a cheer when she gave the speech, and people are continuing to back her up. A number of past Campbell Award winners support her, as does at least one of this year's runners up (Rivers Solomon).
Justine Larbalestier, who did her dissertation on early SF/F: "I doubt many Campbell defenders have read all his editorials. I have.@jeannette_ng is spot on."
Here's Cory Doctorow's response on BoingBoing: It Needed Saying, in which he goes into greater detail as to why Ng is spot on the money.
John Scalzi said he knew Campbell was a racist, but had never wondered whether he might be a fascist, and pointed out that it's because as a white male writing the sort of action-adventure/"hard" SF that Campbell loved, he's never HAD to consider the question, and that was pretty much true of all the people who didn't like what Ng said. Also, that Ng was probably right that Campbell was a fascist, and she definitely had the right to say what she did.
My personal take is that I believe Campbell's contributions to the genre should be remembered. All of them. Including the shitty ones. Especially the shitty ones. You cannot separate out the good things he did (helping the overall quality of writing in SF/F increase, mentoring lots of writers over the decades) with the evil things he did (keeping anyone out of SF/F who wasn't white, male, straight, able-bodied, and encouraging racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, classism, authoritarianism, and every other -ism out there).
And for damn sure his name should be taken off the most prestigious award for Best New Writer.
Every year at Worldcon, there is an award given out that is not a Hugo. It is the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and it is sponsored by Dell publishing house. It's named after John W. Campbell, who edited Astounding (later Analog) Magazine for decades and in so doing shaped the field of science fiction. Campbell was one of the main people who took the pulps of the 20s and pushed and prodded the authors into becoming better writers. Having read some of the best SF/F stories of the 20s-40s, there is a HUGE difference in quality of writing (plot construction, characterization, worldbuilding, themes, eloquence and wordsmithing, everything) between the stories of the 20s and the stories of the 40s, and pretty much everyone who was involved at the time agree that John Campbell was a major part of the reason why. He was incredible at taking a new author under his wing and shaping and polishing and encouraging their writing and helping them be the best they could be. John W. Campbell was a great editor.
John W. Campbell was also a fascist. He was racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and ableist, and he was outspokenly so even for his time. He was authoritarian and distrusted democracy. He once wrote a column supporting the shooting of student protesters. He believed in eugenics. He was colonialist in the worst possible sense of the word. He shaped SF/F to fit his view of what the world should be, both by picking what authors got published and dictating what they should write. Some of the most disgustingly vile SF/F stories ever published were commissioned by him and written to his specifications, including Heinlein's infamous novel "Sixth Column" in which the "happy ending" is genocide. (He's also the reason why "hard" SF can include stuff like telepathy.)
This year's Campbell Award winner is Jeanette Ng. An Asian woman. Originally from Hong Kong, who vocally supports the Hong Kong protests. Someone Campbell would have despised and used his considerable influence to keep out of SF/F. Here's how she began her acceptance speech: "John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, is a fucking fascist." (Here's a video.) Here's a transcript, go read her speech, it is awesome and short. (And if you get to the end of the speech and wonder what "the hat thing" is, here it is. Her hat had a peacock tail, and she could trigger the tail to stand erect from the hat.)
As always, when some major (white ablebodied heterosexual male) historical person gets rightly identified as having done and said really terrible things in addition to the good things they did, there is handwringing and pushback, especially when the person pointing out the problems is a woman of color. But I am very glad that from what I can tell most people are supporting Ms. Ng. She got a cheer when she gave the speech, and people are continuing to back her up. A number of past Campbell Award winners support her, as does at least one of this year's runners up (Rivers Solomon).
Justine Larbalestier, who did her dissertation on early SF/F: "I doubt many Campbell defenders have read all his editorials. I have.
Here's Cory Doctorow's response on BoingBoing: It Needed Saying, in which he goes into greater detail as to why Ng is spot on the money.
John Scalzi said he knew Campbell was a racist, but had never wondered whether he might be a fascist, and pointed out that it's because as a white male writing the sort of action-adventure/"hard" SF that Campbell loved, he's never HAD to consider the question, and that was pretty much true of all the people who didn't like what Ng said. Also, that Ng was probably right that Campbell was a fascist, and she definitely had the right to say what she did.
My personal take is that I believe Campbell's contributions to the genre should be remembered. All of them. Including the shitty ones. Especially the shitty ones. You cannot separate out the good things he did (helping the overall quality of writing in SF/F increase, mentoring lots of writers over the decades) with the evil things he did (keeping anyone out of SF/F who wasn't white, male, straight, able-bodied, and encouraging racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, classism, authoritarianism, and every other -ism out there).
And for damn sure his name should be taken off the most prestigious award for Best New Writer.
