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Apr. 5th, 2015 08:34 pmSo apparently the Hugo Award nominees were announced this weekend, and it was a huge triumph for the Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy slates.
I don't think it's some huge perversion of justice for a popular fan award to be manipulated in this way, but I do think it's a clear manipulation. And I think the problem that non-Sad Puppy fans are faced in future nominations races is that the solution of creating some oppositional non-Sad Puppy slate is preposterous because there wasn't in fact a conspiracy of fannish insiders coordinating the nominations in past years. Non-Sad Puppies is not a bloc with a unified aesthetic approach to science fiction. It's just everyone in fandom who isn't a troll.
The initially baffling thing about the SP/RP slates is their aesthetic choices are baffling. Last year, the problem with Larry Correia's Warbound was that it was so incredibly worse than the other four nominees for best novel. Even supposing every voter for the Hugos read all five novels and evaluated them purely on aesthetic merits, it's hard to imagine Warbound having a shot at winning. (This wonderful post by Matthew Surridge about his reasons for declining his Hugo nomination does a great job of explicating the broader aesthetic problems with the Sad Puppy manifesto.)
If Sad Puppies had truly wanted to position itself in favor of purely popular SF, the slate would have looked a lot different. If Sad Puppies had truly wanted to position itself in favor of well-written but right-ideologically-oriented SF, the slate would have looked a lot different. The Prometheus Award manages to find quality libertarian SF every year with very little controversy, after all.
But the choices are no longer baffling when you consider the SP/RP slates as a pure act of trolling. The choices, in fact, are better if they aren't great, because the purpose of SP/RP is not to win awards, it's to piss on the choices that the Hugo Award voters were making before they got involved.
This is not good for the Hugo Awards. Either Ancillary Sword or The Goblin Emperor win against a weak field, or a weak novel claims the prize. And moreover the whole structure of the voting process is damaged. There almost certainly WILL be a left wing slate next year, no aesthetically superior to the Sad Pupply slate, and the result will be to crowd quality out of the competition.
However, I wonder if Sad Puppies will paradoxically turn out to be good for Worldcon as an institution. Nominations for the Hugos were up more than 200 ballots, which may mean 200 extra supporting/attending memberships as compared to Loncon3, which posted recorded attendance for a Worldcon. Whereas the Hugos represent a judgement on the part of fandom about the best works of SF written in a particular year, proven out over fifty years to be a reasonably reliable marker of quality, Worldcon just represents a large and incredibly diverse group of SF fans getting together to have a gigantic party together. If Sad Puppies calls more attention and brings more new members to Worldcon, that is all for the good for Worldcon. Worldcon benefits from diversity, even diversity of the kind Sad Puppies may bring.
Regardless of the outcome of the Hugo voting, I encourage anyone who is passionate about science fiction to consider attending a future Worldcon. Sasquan will be my third, and it is my firm intention that it will be my third of many, because I had so much fun both at Chicon and at Loncon.
I don't think it's some huge perversion of justice for a popular fan award to be manipulated in this way, but I do think it's a clear manipulation. And I think the problem that non-Sad Puppy fans are faced in future nominations races is that the solution of creating some oppositional non-Sad Puppy slate is preposterous because there wasn't in fact a conspiracy of fannish insiders coordinating the nominations in past years. Non-Sad Puppies is not a bloc with a unified aesthetic approach to science fiction. It's just everyone in fandom who isn't a troll.
The initially baffling thing about the SP/RP slates is their aesthetic choices are baffling. Last year, the problem with Larry Correia's Warbound was that it was so incredibly worse than the other four nominees for best novel. Even supposing every voter for the Hugos read all five novels and evaluated them purely on aesthetic merits, it's hard to imagine Warbound having a shot at winning. (This wonderful post by Matthew Surridge about his reasons for declining his Hugo nomination does a great job of explicating the broader aesthetic problems with the Sad Puppy manifesto.)
If Sad Puppies had truly wanted to position itself in favor of purely popular SF, the slate would have looked a lot different. If Sad Puppies had truly wanted to position itself in favor of well-written but right-ideologically-oriented SF, the slate would have looked a lot different. The Prometheus Award manages to find quality libertarian SF every year with very little controversy, after all.
But the choices are no longer baffling when you consider the SP/RP slates as a pure act of trolling. The choices, in fact, are better if they aren't great, because the purpose of SP/RP is not to win awards, it's to piss on the choices that the Hugo Award voters were making before they got involved.
This is not good for the Hugo Awards. Either Ancillary Sword or The Goblin Emperor win against a weak field, or a weak novel claims the prize. And moreover the whole structure of the voting process is damaged. There almost certainly WILL be a left wing slate next year, no aesthetically superior to the Sad Pupply slate, and the result will be to crowd quality out of the competition.
However, I wonder if Sad Puppies will paradoxically turn out to be good for Worldcon as an institution. Nominations for the Hugos were up more than 200 ballots, which may mean 200 extra supporting/attending memberships as compared to Loncon3, which posted recorded attendance for a Worldcon. Whereas the Hugos represent a judgement on the part of fandom about the best works of SF written in a particular year, proven out over fifty years to be a reasonably reliable marker of quality, Worldcon just represents a large and incredibly diverse group of SF fans getting together to have a gigantic party together. If Sad Puppies calls more attention and brings more new members to Worldcon, that is all for the good for Worldcon. Worldcon benefits from diversity, even diversity of the kind Sad Puppies may bring.
Regardless of the outcome of the Hugo voting, I encourage anyone who is passionate about science fiction to consider attending a future Worldcon. Sasquan will be my third, and it is my firm intention that it will be my third of many, because I had so much fun both at Chicon and at Loncon.