George RR Martin says rightwing lobby has 'broken' Hugo awards

[Ichingcarpenter]

Novelist says that group orchestrating readers’ votes for conservative ‘swashbuckling fun’ is trying to take ownership of the science fiction prizes



George RR Martin has waded into the “nasty, nasty fight” surrounding this year’s Hugo awards, laying out why he believes that a group of rightwing science fiction writers have “broken” the prestigious prize beyond repair.

The shortlists for the long-running American genre awards, won in the past by names from Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K Le Guin and voted for by fans, were announced this weekend to uproar in the science fiction community, after it emerged that the line-up corresponded closely with the slates of titles backed by certain conservative writers. The self-styled “Sad Puppies” campaigners had set out to combat what orchestrator and writer Brad Torgersen had criticised as the Hugos’ tendency to reward “literary” and “ideological” works.

Today’s Hugos, Torgersen has blogged, “have lost cachet, because at the same time SF/F has exploded popularly – with larger-than-life, exciting, entertaining franchises and products – the voting body of ‘fandom’ have tended to go in the opposite direction: niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun”.

Twenty years ago, he writes,.....................................................



http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/09/george-rr-martin-right-wing-broken-hugo-awards

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. There appears to be a slight error in his story.

From the linked story

The writers’ campaign to get the authors they believe deserve rewarding onto the Hugo shortlists has been eminently successful: three of the five best novel candidates appear on the Sad Puppies list, books by Kevin J Anderson, Jim Butcher and Marko Kloos.

From his link to the Hugo awards.

Best Novel (1827 nominating ballots, 587 entries, range 212-387)

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)

No 'Marko Kloos'.

At a guess, Martin spoke up before balloting was complete, maybe, and Kloos fell to sixth, perhaps?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The article was written on the 9th; Kloos withdrew his book on the 15th

since he doesn't like ballot stuffing either:

Two Authors Withdraw Their Work From This Year's Hugo Awards

Marko Kloos, who was nominated for his novel Lines of Departure, writes:

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.

Meanwhile, Annie Bellet, who was nominated for the short story "Goodnight, Stars," says:

I am 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 dodge ball, where I’m both a conscripted player and also a ball. (Wrap your head around that analogy, if you can, ha!) All joy that might have come from this nomination has been co-opted, ruined, or sapped away. This is not about celebrating good writing anymore, and I don’t want to be a part of what it has become.

I am not a ball. I do not want to be a player. This is not what my writing is about. This is not why I write. I believe in a compassionate, diverse, and inclusive world. I try to write my own take on human experiences and relationships, and present my fiction as entertainingly and honestly as I can.

http://io9.com/two-authors-withdraw-their-work-from-the-hugo-awards-1698053027

[JHB]

3. Author Eric Flint also delves into this subject

Some comments on the Hugos and other SF awards
I’ve been doing my best to stay away from the current ruckus over the Hugo Awards, but it’s now spread widely enough that it’s spilled onto my Facebook page, and it’s bound to splatter on me elsewhere as well. It’s also been brought to my attention that Breitbart’s very well-trafficked web site—never famous for the accuracy of its so-called “reporting”—has me listed as one of the supposedly downtrodden conservative and/or libertarian authors oppressed by the SF establishment. Given my lifelong advocacy of socialism—and I was no armchair Marxist either, but committed twenty-five years of my life to being an activist in the industrial trade unions—I find that quite amusing.

***

First, on the Hugo and Nebula (and all other) awards given out in science fiction. Do they have problems? Yes, they all do. For a variety of reasons, the awards no longer have much connection to the Big Wide World of science fiction and fantasy readers. Thirty and forty years ago, they did. Today, they don’t.

Is this because of political bias, as charged by at least some of the people associated with the Sad Puppies slate? No, it isn’t—or at least not in the way the charge is being leveled. I will discuss this issue later, but for the moment let me address some more general questions.

What I’m going to be dealing with in this essay is a reality that is now at least tacitly recognized by most professional authors—and stated bluntly on occasion by editors and publishers. That’s the growing divergence between the public’s perception of fantasy and science fiction and the perception of the much smaller group of people who vote for literary awards and write literary reviews for the major F&SF magazines. There was a time in fantasy and science fiction when the public’s assessment of the field’s various authors and the assessment of its “inner circles” was, if not identical, very closely related. But that time is far behind us.

(much more at the link)
http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/2015/04/16/some-comments-on-the-hugos-and-other-sf-awards/

[sufrommich]

4. Sad Puppies are the GamerGate morons of Science Fiction.

There is tons of crossover between the two groups with Breitbart and right wing YouTube personalities leading the charge. One of their leaders is Theodore Beale ,known as Vox Day who used to be a writer at World Nut Daily and has incredibly reactionary views,as an example:

Theodore Beale, known by his pseudonym Vox Day,[1] is a science fiction author, game designer,[2] musician,[3] pseudo-libertarian, anti-vaxxer,[4] racist,[5] Christian apologist, pickup artist, stalker[6], and all-round fucking idiot. He is the epitome of evidence that not all artists are sensible, intelligent people, contrary to stereotype. He is a former pundit for WorldNetDaily (which says a lot about the demographic he's pitching to). Vox Day also has his own blog, "Vox Popoli," on which he attempts to "disprove" atheism, environmentalism, and liberalism through extensive use of poorly-thought out attacks. He also wrote the book The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, which pioneered some of the most popular methods of "debating" atheists (mostly just calling them names). He is the only person to be kicked out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in its nearly fifty year history.


He's active in both GamerGate and Sad Puppies.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale

[metalbot]

10. That's not quite true

Vox Day started his own campaign "Rabid Puppies", and it is the Vox Day campaign that caused the authors to withdraw, not the "Sad Puppies" campaign. The leadership of "Sad Puppies" has repeatedly distanced themselves from Vox Day this year.

[sufrommich]

12. There is no difference between the two groups.

Sad Puppies is the mask of "legitimacy" for this very reactionary group and Rabid Puppies are the snipers.I don't care if they've distanced themselves from Vox Day "this year",that's just an attempt at damage control.

[winter is coming]

14. There's a lot of overlap between the slates, and there didn't seem to be much interest

in disavowing VD before the wank started. Let's not pretend that the Sad Puppies are paragons of virtue; they're just less willing to seen to be as extreme as Vox Day. Both slates nominated John C. Wright (multiple times), and he's a religious homophobic nutbag who couldn't write a coherent sentence if his life depended on it.

[bemildred]

5. Gee, an ideological campaign against ideological and literary awards for books.

We need more books without all those distracting ideas and writing. These guys are really advanced thinkers.

[stillwaiting]

8. Movement conservatives take irony and hypocrisy to STRATOSPHERICAL levels.

And many are blind to it, while those that aren't don't care since it advances their ideology.

There is no reasonable discussion to be had with movement conservatives. They aren't honest in their communications.

[Octafish]

6. It's the only way that authoritarian mindset knows how to operate, cheating.

Put anything they propose to a vote and they lose, otherwise.

Control the way SF is published today, the right thinks, and they can control what young imaginations visualize tomorrow.

[metalbot]

11. That's actually the opposite of what happened here

Nominations for the Hugo's are done by vote. Sad Puppies brought out the vote. The primary discussions within the community are about how to suppress that vote in the future, to change the rules such that only "true fans" vote. Which is a sad irony, because it basically reinforces Correia's point.

As Martin points out, there's no good path forward here. If the Hugo nominations are done by vote, then this is going to basically force all parties to do "block voting", and the Hugo's become a two-party system. If the Hugo nominations are not done by vote, then they are now picked by committee. How do you pick the people on the committee? Do we get block votes for committees?

[winter is coming]

15. What the Puppies brought out were the Gamergaters who don't give two shits about

science fiction and were gullible enough to vote for whoever the Puppies wanted... including an artist later declared ineligible because they hadn't created any art in 2014. People aren't trying to "suppress" the vote; they're trying to prevent it from being manipulated again in the future by people like VD, who has said he'll blow up the Hugos from here on out if "No Award" wins instead of Puppies candidates.

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/5302561.html

[mwrguy]

7. Hugos have been going to right wing fucktards for decades

Robert Heinlein, Neal Stephenson, Orson Scott Card...

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Attention wingers: There is already an SF award just for 'libertarian' writers ...

you don't need to take over another one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Award

The list of nominees seems pretty random -- almost as if there was some confusion, or at least a lack of clarity, among the nominators as to what "freedom" really means. Go figure.

[Capt. Obvious]

13. Why hasn't Elizabeth Warren commented on this?

I searched Google but came up with nothing.