My instinct is, in science fiction, to go with the story. One of the things that Brad Torgerson did with Sad Puppies three was produce a really good reading list, which Kate the Aussie intends to continue with in Sad Puppies 4. If nothing else, you get a good sense of who has been writing good stuff.
To that end, this thread will be the first of several to collect recommendations. There will also be multiple permanent threads (one per category) on the SP4 website where people can make comments. The tireless, wonderful volunteer Puppy Pack will be collating recommendations.
Later – most likely somewhere around February or early March, I’ll be posting The List to multiple locations. The List will not be a slate – it will be a list of the ten or so most popular recommendations in each Hugo category, and a link to the full list in all its glory. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you want to see your favorite author receive a nomination and an award, your best bet will be to cast your nomination ballot for one of the works in the top ten or thereabouts of The List. My recommendations will not count any more or any less than anyone else’s recommendations (with one exception – I will NOT be on the list. Neither will Sarah or Amanda. If anyone wants to nominate any of us they’ll need to do it on their own).
Anyone can post any number of recommendations (obviously not for the same work – one recommendation per person per work), and there is NO political test. The only criteria is that you’ve read it/watched it/seen it and you think it’s one of the best in its Hugo class published in 2015.
This is the higher ground. If Charles Stross and Hines did the same thing, as Locus has, I’d expect some things…
- The same books would be on everyone’s list. The Annihilation Score for example: it is the best of a very good series, and though I disagree with Stross on issues from theology to Scottish devolution, the bastard can write
- There will be real diversity. Perhaps of skin colour and genitalia, but more importantly, of ideas. We need to be looking at sacred cows, and working out if they truly taste like chicken
- It will be about the books, films and zines. And costumes. It is a con: which is why this introvert never goes to them
But that will not happen, which brings me to my big argument with the Sad Puppies: their tactics are wrong for the Hugos. I think that the list of books and movies etc. that the Sad puppies list will be a great reading list for the next year… and I like my science fiction.
When you take a step back, it’s easy to see the Sad Puppies as the only sympathetic clique of the lot. They bought their memberships and voted for the stories they thought were worthy of recognition, as was their right as members – they’re also the only group who didn’t advocate a response of “if we can’t have it, nobody can!” Of everybody involved in the voting, the Sad Puppies did nothing wrong. In fact, they may be the only clique in this mess who actually honoured the fan-driven spirit of the Hugo Awards. It speaks volumes that when George R.R. Martin asked if he could nominate authors for consideration in next year’s Sad Puppies effort, the answer came back as an unconditional “yes.”
As a couple of very good analyses show, the Sad Puppies have a point – while the Hugos supposedly represent science fiction fandom, there is a major disconnect over the last few years between the tastes of modern science fiction fandom as a whole and the tastes of the clique that controls the Hugo Awards, and there is a left-wing bias in the nominees and winners. These points, however, were more or less lost in the increasingly vicious turf war, with the established clique successfully rallying supporters in the name of saving the Hugo Awards and Science Fiction itself from the puppy menace.
The awards began, and my wife and I watched on the livestream as the hosts handed out a record 5 “No Award” – equal to the number handed out in the entire prior history of the Hugos. On the first, there was cheering and applause. By the fourth, one of the MCs – David Gerrold – told the audience that booing was not appropriate, although it was the applause that came through loudest. I wonder just how many of the boos had come from those realizing that they were watching the Hugo Awards burn before their eyes as the crowd applauded and cheered.
Although the message the established clique was attempting to send was a rejection of slate voting, there were very different and clear messages to both the authors and the fans, and neither was positive. To the authors the message was this: The quality of your story does not matter if you were nominated by the wrong people. If you were liked by the wrong clique and managed to score a nomination, you will be expected to condemn part of your own readership to save face with Hugos voters. The message to fans was: You can join Worldcon and nominate for the Hugos, but only so long as you nominate the right people – if you don’t, the regulars would rather give out no award than see your candidate receive a rocket.
There aren’t too many takeaways from this that aren’t depressing. If there was a winner in all of this mess, it was Theodore Beale – he wanted to see the Hugos burn, and he got his wish. He even had the pleasure of watching the established clique light the match and start the fire by voting against him. If there was a loser, it was everybody else, but particularly the authors and editors who were denied an award not because their work lacked quality, but because they had the misfortune to be nominated by the wrong people.
What Vox and his otters (I think he’s heading to Muscatine world for the next campaign are going to do is game the Hugos. The Sads have been accused of gaming by playing fair. Vox. Writes. Games. He is using the Hugos as a practice battle for the bigger cultural wars that are impending. S
It’s worth noting that the Vox does some things that the elite do: his beloved Spacebunny is home schooling, they are (as far as I can tell) not living in the USA, and he’s not dependant on any employer. He is antifragile. This has some uses: the usual techniques of doxxing and getting the employer to sack him won’t work, and the more Scalzi, Stross and co call him evil the greater his audience is.
And he’s upfront. He wants the Hugos destroyed, leaving a smoking crater of nuclear glass. He wants to destroy the playpen of the elite.
Tactically, Vox is correct. I don’t thing the Sad Puppies will win: I think they will be “No awarded” even if they put Stross at the top of their list. Which would be shameful, because Stross is a darn good writer, and the anti Sads would be no-voting one of their UK allies. The Sad Puppies list, however, will be useful. They will even let Stross and Martin make their suggestions known.
What the elite (mainly at Tor, according to Mr and Mrs Wright) do not understand is that literary SF is dying. The young guys will read military SF: I know what my son-in-law and spawn read. They won’t read deep and meaningful LGBTWaifu disguised by rockets. There is a disconnect between what is popular and what the critics like.
The Sad Puppies deserve our support, for they are taking the high road. However, if I was betting, it would be on the otters.
Oh Lord, “waifu” is making it mainstream.
That hurts my soul a little.
On the topic in General, it’s a point I make about the Church over the last 200 years. The devil’s best trick was convincing us of our own Press. All of the “Christian Nations” stuff is sort of bunk. If you read any of the active Christian writers, during any decade over the last 300 years, what they don’t describe is rising Christianity until the revival movements happen. They talk of constant decay of morals. So the brutal “lie” is that we are not like the Children of Israel, coming to the Lord one generation then leaving him the next.
Further with that lie, anyone of an (American-style) “conservative” bent, who doesn’t like to blow things up without a really good reason, has boxed themselves in mentally as a “boy scout”. That there are codes to the war (spiritual and social) that are made from myths. It’s a brilliant trick to get your adversary to play by rules they invented for themselves with a rose-colored history book.
This is normally the place to toss in a historical point about a military being unprepared at the start of the war, taken off guard by the result of a battle, then utterly changing tactics. That this type of historical point happens with every conflict actually tells us more about human nature than we like to think. But things will change, and rapidly. I just hope it’s not as bloody as I think it could be.