It has been months since the announcement of the Hugo Award finalists and the fervor regarding this year’s ballot has yet to abate.
Hugo Award online voting ends on July 31st, but the discussion is likely to last well after the Hugo Award ceremonies on August 22nd.
In anticipation of the voting deadline, I’m getting ready to write about the finalists in various categories. At some point, it was inevitable that I’d need to address the controversy arising from the slate-driven nominations.
Here’s my viewpoint: the Hugo Award controversy is making it harder for everyone to find great books and making it harder for us to enjoy them.
Our first reaction, rather than adding to the skyrocketing number of blog posts about the controversy, was to build the Hugo Award Voting Guide, a website providing information on the 2015 Hugo Award finalists.
People can look at the information and decide on their own, even if they aren’t voting this year.
It is truly disappointing; after years of following the Hugo Award and reading the finalists, this will be my first year attending WorldCon.
But we can’t pretend these Hugo Awards will be normal. It is truly disappointing; after years of following the Hugo Award and reading the finalists, this will be my first year attending WorldCon. Looking back at my blog post about filling in a nomination ballot for the first time, it seems naïve.
Whether you are a Sad Puppy ally or a Staunch Anti-Puppy, the result of promoting a specific ballot is now clear.
Slate-driven nominations may highlight a few select authors or story types, but also narrow the overall selection of nominated works.
Unlike in past years, it is also harder to enjoy reading the nominated works as well. Readers should not have to feel they are making a political choice when choosing what to read. Regardless of intent, a nominated work on a Sad Puppies slate is now associated with the slate and outspoken supporters of the slate.
For many, it makes voting in the Hugo Awards this year surprisingly difficult.
I enjoy reading about the many different worlds science fiction and fantasy authors have created through their writing. I’m not enjoying the world they are creating amongst their own fans.
I was lucky enough to attend a recent author event with distinguished sci-fi and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin. The discussion extended even there.
In response to a question, Le Guin, said the controversy was “a great pity, because it has tarnished the Hugo, which meant a lot to fans of science fiction.”
I definitely feel this way— my Hugo nominations I did out of the fannish joy of my heart, but they took on different meaning when I found out some just happened to be on the Sad Puppies Slate as well. Should I rethink how I vote on my final ballot, just because of politics? Regardless of my eventual decision, no one should even have to think about these things when filling out a ballot.
I enjoy reading about the many different worlds science fiction and fantasy authors have created through their writing. I’m not enjoying the world they are creating amongst their own fans.
The Sad Puppies and the related Rabid Puppies, by promoting a certain way of filling out a nominations ballot, essentially took over the final ballot. No rules were broken. However, in their mission to promote a certain type of science fiction or fantasy, all other types were excluded.
But I cannot in good faith dismiss a written piece of work simply because one controversial group promoted it. The nominations, although tainted, are legitimate. And I am a book reviewer. After reading a book, I base my review on the book itself, not the politics of the author or the fans.
My position: I want to set the controversy aside for now. Before filling out my hugo ballot, I will do my best to read nominated works and share my analysis as well as my top choice in the category.
However, as this is a vote for the best science fiction and fantasy, I will be quite critical. After all, I need to decide whether a work is the best of the year, not the best on the ballot.
2015 Hugo Award finalists
Register to Vote in the 2015 Hugo Awards
The Voting System | The Hugo Awards
Kallen Kentner ·
I am a scifi author and this is my first year voting for the Hugos. I felt niave, but I voted for what I liked the best of the nominations and tried to ignore the whole sad puppy thing. Though it did bother me that I even had to think about what my vote says.
I became an SF&F fan since the fifties, when I figured out this reading thing. (My very first SF book was the Mushroom Planet.) Although the depth of my reading has varied over my life, I’ve always kept a toe in the pool, and now, after retirement I find myself moving back into the deep end.
I think that the incredibly fact-free and often libelous (I mean that – I was a lawyer and I know what libel is) attacks on the Sad Puppies rather proves their point. That is what tarnishes the Hugos – not the existence of the SPs. And it distresses me that these attacks are swallowed so easily by so many apparently reasonable people – I always thought that SF fans were of a higher calibre of intellect than that. It appears to me that these people have not done their due diligence, and checked the facts for themselves. It’s simple, for example, to put the lie to the claim that the SP slate is all-white-male. Yet I keep reading that it is.
Concerting the “slating,” I asked Jerry Pournelle for his take on the SPs, and he responded that there have always been campaigns for nominees for awards of this kind – if it doesn’t bother Dr. Pournelle, it shouldn’t bother anyone. I do think that your point about the narrowing effect of slating is correct, but that effect might be diminished if more people are doing the nominating next year, or if there are other slates. With any luck, the outcome will be that the Hugos are re-invigorated, which is part of the SP’s objective, I believe.
I didn’t do any nominating, on my own or for the SPs, because I came too late to the party. I could have used the SP slate as a guide, but I would have had to read the nominee’s works first, which I didn’t have time to do. I hope I might make a nominee or two next year, at least in some categories. I hope to see more slates, surfacing in time to let me get some reading done before the nominations close.
You say: “But I cannot in good faith dismiss a written piece of work simply because one controversial group promoted it. The nominations, although tainted, are legitimate. And I am a book reviewer. After reading a book, I base my review on the book itself, not the politics of the author or the fans.”
I say, you are exactly correct. And I am voting based on my own judgments, and nothing else. There are several SP nominees who I won’t even rank because I don’t think that they are Hugo-worthy. And with the help of your excellent Guide, I have learned that some of my number one rankings are not SP.