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Some thoughts on the Hugos
Apr. 20th, 2014 09:24 pmI hear you when you call for pictures of the skirt. I even have some pictures. I will try to get them up soon. Thank you for your interest.
So, the Hugos. You know, I don't usually care all that much. Congratulations to the nominees and again to the winners and of course I'm pleased if some author I really like wins, but aside from that I never gave it much thought.
Then someone drew my attention to Larry Correia's "Sad Puppies" campaign. Let me sum it up: Larry Correia has been writing military science fiction for a while--his first book was published four years ago I think. And he has not received a Hugo yet.
He believes the reason for this is that the people who vote on the Hugos are deeply prejudiced against him because he is a conservative. Now, this could be. In my one experience with him, he could not handle disagreement with courtesy, which is a bit of a difficulty--and since science fiction readers in general skew liberal, this is going to be more of a difficulty for a conservative like Larry. If most of the people voting on the Hugos have interacted with him, that might indeed rebound to his detriment, since humans are humans and our opinion of the work is likely to be at least slightly tainted by unpleasant memories of the writer.
His solution was to persuade a bunch of people who liked him because they're fellow conservatives but who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in voting in the Hugo nominations to spring for a supporting membership so they could nominate him and a slate of other conservative writers. This, to a large extent, worked. Hence his presence in the best novel category and the presence of much of his slate in their respective categories. Voting for his slate of candidates was presented as striking a brave blow against, well, liberals like me.
This is not the new and daring idea he seems to imagine. The Bagwan Shree Rajneesh did something similar in Oregon in the late '80s--brought in a bunch of his cult followers to camp on the edge of The Dalles, register to vote in the local elections, and then try to dominate the local elections and put Rajneeshies in power. As I recall it didn't work for them--they didn't quite have the numbers. But that doesn't mean it won't work for Larry.
What do I think of this? I think I'm going to watch for the Hugo packet. If they do a packet of e-books for the Hugo again this year I'm going to scrape together the $42 and buy a supporting membership at World Con. Then I'm going to read all the entries and evaluate them on their merits as best I can, being only human. Then I'm going to vote. And if I think a particular entry doesn't deserve a Hugo award under any circumstances because it is Just Not Hugo Material, then I will put "No Award" in above that entry in the standard way.
What else do I think? I think this is a priceless opportunity to evaluate conservative science fiction. Basically what we have here is a bunch of conservatives putting $42 each on the line to say "these. These ones are the best of the best we have to offer. Read them and see what you think." So I will. This is a win-win situation for me--if the books are good I've found a new source of good reading material. If the books are insulting degrading boring schlock, I've given the best of the best of conservative science fiction a fair try and established that it's lousy, which will save me time in the future.
Bring it on.
So, the Hugos. You know, I don't usually care all that much. Congratulations to the nominees and again to the winners and of course I'm pleased if some author I really like wins, but aside from that I never gave it much thought.
Then someone drew my attention to Larry Correia's "Sad Puppies" campaign. Let me sum it up: Larry Correia has been writing military science fiction for a while--his first book was published four years ago I think. And he has not received a Hugo yet.
He believes the reason for this is that the people who vote on the Hugos are deeply prejudiced against him because he is a conservative. Now, this could be. In my one experience with him, he could not handle disagreement with courtesy, which is a bit of a difficulty--and since science fiction readers in general skew liberal, this is going to be more of a difficulty for a conservative like Larry. If most of the people voting on the Hugos have interacted with him, that might indeed rebound to his detriment, since humans are humans and our opinion of the work is likely to be at least slightly tainted by unpleasant memories of the writer.
His solution was to persuade a bunch of people who liked him because they're fellow conservatives but who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in voting in the Hugo nominations to spring for a supporting membership so they could nominate him and a slate of other conservative writers. This, to a large extent, worked. Hence his presence in the best novel category and the presence of much of his slate in their respective categories. Voting for his slate of candidates was presented as striking a brave blow against, well, liberals like me.
This is not the new and daring idea he seems to imagine. The Bagwan Shree Rajneesh did something similar in Oregon in the late '80s--brought in a bunch of his cult followers to camp on the edge of The Dalles, register to vote in the local elections, and then try to dominate the local elections and put Rajneeshies in power. As I recall it didn't work for them--they didn't quite have the numbers. But that doesn't mean it won't work for Larry.
What do I think of this? I think I'm going to watch for the Hugo packet. If they do a packet of e-books for the Hugo again this year I'm going to scrape together the $42 and buy a supporting membership at World Con. Then I'm going to read all the entries and evaluate them on their merits as best I can, being only human. Then I'm going to vote. And if I think a particular entry doesn't deserve a Hugo award under any circumstances because it is Just Not Hugo Material, then I will put "No Award" in above that entry in the standard way.
What else do I think? I think this is a priceless opportunity to evaluate conservative science fiction. Basically what we have here is a bunch of conservatives putting $42 each on the line to say "these. These ones are the best of the best we have to offer. Read them and see what you think." So I will. This is a win-win situation for me--if the books are good I've found a new source of good reading material. If the books are insulting degrading boring schlock, I've given the best of the best of conservative science fiction a fair try and established that it's lousy, which will save me time in the future.
Bring it on.
