10 Hugo Thoughts
The 2015 Hugo nominees were announced yesterday. As much of the internet has noted, the vast majority of the nominees come from the Sad and/or Rabid Puppies slates. Most reactions seem to fall into either anger/grief or gloating/triumph, with very little in between. Personally, I’m happy about a few of the nominees, intrigued by a couple, and rolling my eyes at others.
Some thoughts before I get back to writing…
1. The puppies broke the rules! Well, no. Putting forth an organized slate, recruiting GamerGaters and others who buy into the “War Against the SJWs, for FREEDOM!” nonsense is perfectly legal. Tacky and at times dishonest? Sure. But not against the rules.
2. The puppies are only doing what the Other Side did first! Some folks blame John Scalzi for starting this, but try as I might, I can’t find anything about his Bacon Kittens campaign to take the Hugos back from…I don’t even know. I’ve seen references to SJW conspiracies and secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms, again with no evidence whatsoever. Some people try to point to voting numbers as “proof” of organized campaigns, which…just no. (Kevin Standlee dismantles this one in the follow-up comment.) As far as I can tell, there’s a widespread assumption that the “other side” was somehow organizing secret campaigns and block-voting, and that assumption is being used to justify the puppies organizing a campaign and block-voting.
3. They’re destroying the genre! Whatever “they” you’re thinking of, I don’t buy it. The genre is so much bigger than the Hugos, Worldcon, GamerGate, and the rest. The majority of SF/F fans have only the vaguest awareness of what the Hugo is, let alone the in-fighting and politics and such. Don’t worry, the genre will be just fine.
4. They’re destroying the Hugos! There were claims that the Hugos could be gamed and manipulated, and I think the puppies have effectively proven that’s true, at least for the short list. Does this mean the Hugos are broken? Not necessarily. Does it mean the rules should be changed to make it more difficult to game the system? I don’t really have an opinion on that yet, though I’m sure there will be plenty of discussion in the near future…
5. People should read the works and judge based on quality/People should rank all puppy-related works below No Award. My thinking is that people should read and vote however they want to. If you prefer to read everything, go for it. But I’m not going to tell someone they should force themselves to read the work of someone who publicly denounces a prominent black author as an “ignorant half-savage,” or an author who refers to bisexuality as “sexual aberration.” And if organizing a slate is within the rules, so is choosing to put every item on that slate below No Award on the final ballot.
6. They’re just trying to expand the ballot and make it more inclusive/representative/diverse. I can see a little of that, if I squint. The puppies pushed to get a successful self-published author onto the ballot, for example. They talked about getting tie-in works nominated, but didn’t actually include any on their slate. They did give tie-in author Kevin J. Anderson his first Hugo nom for one of his original books. But if your campaign ends up putting the same author on the ballot in six different spots, then no, you weren’t looking very broadly for nominees. And far more of the comments and rhetoric seemed to be about sticking it to SJWs…
7. The people who asked to be removed from the puppy ballots did so out of fear of SJW attacks. That certainly plays well into the wag-the-dog-style “War Against the SJWs” rhetoric. If you’re interested in people’s actual reasons, Matthew David Surridge has a long and thoughtful post about why he declined to be on the slate. Dave Creek’s reasons for declining are on File770.
8. What about that one story about the dinosaur? Holy crap, some people are so fixated on the fact that Rachel Swirsky’s If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love got on the Hugo ballot last year. (It did not win.) That one story keeps getting pointed out as proof of everything that’s wrong with the Hugos/liberals/the genre/feminism/society/the universe. The amusing part is when the folks saying they want to tear down the mythical gatekeepers are simultaneously losing their shit because they don’t think a story counts as real SF/F.
9. Conservatives are evil! Liberals are evil! SJWs are narrowminded bigots! Right-wingers are narrowminded bigots! Look, all groups have their share of assholes. I do think the Sad Puppy clique has a disproportionate number of assholes, but sweeping generalizations are just…annoying. Can we not, please?
10. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. Bullshit. Nobody should be required to cough up a minimum of $40 in order to have an opinion.
And that’s already more time than I wanted to spend on this today. I’m gonna go back to work on Revisionary now. Enjoy what’s left of your weekend, folks!
My thoughts on the Hugo Nominations | Relentless Reading (And Writing About It!)
April 5, 2015 @ 5:36 pm
[…] Sad Puppy target Jim C. Hines weighs in. […]
Michele Lee
April 5, 2015 @ 6:05 pm
At this point I just want to know as a novice spec fix author am I required to care or have An Opinion (a public, professional one I mean)? I am so tired of crap like these debates and this “sad puppy” manipulative bs. I just want to write and want people to find my writing entertaining. This crap takes so much enjoyment out of fiction and publishing for me. I thought we were all in fandom because we loved it. Why do so many people seem to be involved just so they can hit each other with asshat hamners.?
Jim C. Hines
April 5, 2015 @ 6:10 pm
I have never seen a novel or story contract that required me to have An Opinion. Write on, author!
josh jasper
April 5, 2015 @ 6:35 pm
Why would you think anyone requires you to have an opinion?
Craig Laurance Gidney
April 5, 2015 @ 6:37 pm
I’ve noticed that the Sad Puppies are trying (not very hard) to distance themselves from the Rabid Puppies. But ultimately, they are different sides of the same coin. SPs talk about “affirmative action” “literary (aka elitist)” fiction, while the RPs seem to want to keep SF/F white and male. (Straight is assumed). It’s the difference between dog-whistling and using a bullhorn.
Another thing: How comfortable would I (black, gay) be attending a Worldcon amongst various white supremacists, homophobes, and their apologists?
Muccamukk
April 5, 2015 @ 6:43 pm
Didn’t Linda Nagata get on the hugo ballot for her self-pubbed book last year? I guess she might not count because she was pro-published prior to self-pubbing (or, from certain points of view, because she’s a girl), so established her reputation that way. Anyway, you can get a self-pubbed novel on the ballot without block voting.
Aaron Kashtan
April 5, 2015 @ 6:49 pm
Linda Nagata’s self-published book was nominated for a Nebula, not a Hugo.
Tom Trumpinski
April 5, 2015 @ 6:52 pm
in regard to #6…wasn’t Seanan nominated in five different categories recently?
Bob Hole
April 5, 2015 @ 6:54 pm
Craig, I hope you will attend and feel just as comfortable as can be. Two reasons – 1. Most of these people won’t be attending, they just did supporting so they could vote (I’m guessing, I have no inside knowledge, but I’d bet it’s true). 2. Worldcon in general is far more welcoming than not. And harassment of any kind will not be tolerated by this particular Worldcon Board – I know several of them and they will be vigilant.
Muccamukk
April 5, 2015 @ 7:02 pm
Ah, I remembered that wrong then (and was too lazy too look it up). Thanks for the correction.
josh jasper
April 5, 2015 @ 7:21 pm
I’m pretty sure that the SP ballot is there to keep genre fiction as minority unwelcoming as they possibly can too.
Acceptable minorities will have to conform to “color blindness” in which the experiences of a minority can’t make it into a book because that’s “politics” and keeping the books “politics” free isn’t seen as political at all.
As for queer people, John C Wright of the Sad Puppies has made his opinions of them showing up in “his” fiction quite clear. He flipped his sh*t publicly about the Legend of Korra queer connection. Queer people are disgusting and perverted according to him. Akin to child abusers.
Those are the *mild* voices of the Sad Puppies. The guy behind the Rabid Puppies wants to disenfranchise women, and maintains that black people are genetically inferior. So yeah, he’s worse, but so what? Stormfront is worse than Vdare. They’re both white supremacist groups.
Wendy
April 5, 2015 @ 7:31 pm
Seanan was on the ballot multiple times for multiple kinds of work. She’s also insanely prolific.
As I recall her noms were for a novel (SF/Horror/Conspiracy written as Mira Grant), a short story and a novella associated with ongoing very popular and well-selling series under her own name, as a contributor to a podcast, and for a filk album. All very different works.
Bex
April 5, 2015 @ 8:05 pm
And she wasn’t nominated THREE TIMES in one category.
This is what really gets me–SF/F is such a diverse field that it defies logic for Wright to get 3/5 novella spots. Even if he was the bestest writer there was and not a total asshat, it would still be ridiculous. This is not diversifying the field. This is throwing a temper tantrum because you and your friends didn’t get picked to be on the baseball team (when plenty of other conservative authors clearly have/did).
Jack Skillingstead
April 5, 2015 @ 8:17 pm
The Swirsky story was quite good. The objection is that it lacks a sf element. Also, I didn’t see it as being a feminist tract. It’s obviously a love story. Reverse the gender, and it have the same story.
Craig Laurance Gidney
April 5, 2015 @ 8:27 pm
Thanks for address my concerns, Bob. I tend to avoid toxic situations if I can help it!
Jim C. Hines
April 5, 2015 @ 8:28 pm
But if enough Worldcon voters thought it was SFnal enough to nominate, aren’t we just coming back to people saying, “You voted wrong because I disagree with you”? And maybe the reason it lost was partly *because* it lacked a strong SF/F element. I dunno. I’m just bored of hearing, “The Hugos are broken, because Dinosaur Story!!!”
Cat Sittingstill
April 5, 2015 @ 8:31 pm
I looked at the post on Brad’s blog where he asked for suggestions for the Sad Puppy slate.
42 people (if I counted right) suggested, among other things, 35 novels. Of those 35 novels, four got three suggestions each, four got two suggestions each, and the other 27 novels were suggested by one person each. No novel got more than three suggestions.
So even among the Sad Puppies, a group whose tastes can reasonably be expected to align more closely than all Hugo nominators, the most popular books were getting less than 10% of the nominations.
Brad curated that into a slate of five books, each of which presumably got close to 100% of nominations.
*That* is the difference a slate makes.
And in the process, the Sad and Rabid Puppies overlooked the Heinlein bio that came out in 2014. Something right up their alley. Understandable, because nobody can know everything in the SF field that they would like. But I saw Larry Correia admit in a comment on his blog that he would have put it on the Sad Puppies slate if he had known about it.
And in the process, the Sad and Rabid Puppies overlooked _The Three Body Problem_ by Ken Liu. It’s an excellent old-school SF novel–exactly the type of thing they like. I saw Vox Day admit in a comment on File 770 that he would have added it to the Rabid Puppies slate if he had known about it.
The two slates locked up most of the Hugo Ballot. And in the process they locked out the _Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century Volume 2_ from Best Related Work and they locked out _The Three Body Problem_ from the Best Novel ballot. In the ordinary course of things those might have reasonably expected to pick up about 40 votes* from the Puppies of various types in addition to whatever they got. Since they were both well thought of in other quarters, they would have had a really good chance to get on the ballot.
And *that* is the problem with a slate. In giving a huge unfair boost to the works that made the slate, it is unfair to every work that didn’t make the slate. Not just works by the poopyheads on the “other side” but works on their “own side;” works that the slate makers would have loved to see on the Hugo Ballot if they had just let the other nominators suggest them.
—————————————————————–
*I tentatively set the Puppy numbers at 480–the difference in total nominations between Best Fan Writer, in which the Puppies nominated, and Best Fan Artist, in which they did not.
Olna Jenn Smith
April 5, 2015 @ 8:36 pm
She was, however, there is a difference. She was nominated for novel and novella writing sci fi, novelette (twice) for urban fantasy, and fancast (a group effort, I note). And I winced at seeing her twice in one category. Wright is up THREE TIMES in one category, which I am honestly very angry about because it’s harming every other author who writes that length.
For the rest of it, I’m disgusted in general? But hey, if you write a really good novel and a really good short story published in the same year and get noms for both, good for you.
Kevin hogan
April 5, 2015 @ 9:05 pm
I thought “Wakulla Springs” had a similarly-tenuous genre connection last year, but I am not seeing it used at all as an example. I wonder why that is.
Matthew Thyer
April 5, 2015 @ 9:15 pm
/VirtualHighFive
Right on Jim, I’ve spent the weekend packing for our house move and working on boats, but that whole time I’ve been stewing on this matter. How should I react? Basically, what I see is another successful attempt to game the ballot. The funny thing is that despite getting so many names on the short list they still haven’t “won” anything. The backlash from gaming the nominations ballot is likely much greater than SP/RPs imagine which means no rockets. They want fame, they’re getting infamy.
I’ve had my ticket since they went on sale and I plan on attending WorldCon. It will be a first for me and I’ve been looking forward to the convention as well as the workshops with much anticipation. Should I let this bother me? Should I let SP/RP’s social immaturity and narcissism wreck what could otherwise be a very productive and enjoyable experience for me? Meh, not going to happen. SFF is as big as any other sub-classification of fiction. I suspect I should be happy in the knowledge that a higher percentage of asshat per capita of writer has self-identified. Maybe they’ll wear t-shirts or something so the rest of us can steer clear on the convention floor.
Jack Skillingstead
April 5, 2015 @ 11:01 pm
That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t care if it’s on the Hugo list. It did win a Nebula, after all. But it’s also legitimate to ask why a mainstream story is on a ballot intended for work done in the sff field. I’M not asking that, but I’m not a purist.
Jack Skillingstead
April 5, 2015 @ 11:24 pm
Right. Also Karen Fowler’s excellent, though non sf, novel. I like the mix, but some resent it, probably because they feel these mainstream works can receive honors in the wider literary world, while core sf has nowhere w else to go
Sue Bursztynski
April 6, 2015 @ 12:28 am
Hi Jim,
As a member of a publication that published you(and Rachel Swirsky!) early in your career, I’d just like to say that no one contacted ASIM at all. I know this because until very recently I was answering inquiries on our site and my replacement is a good, decent fan of many years standing who would have let us know. We only found out about this, by chance on Friday, at third hand. We would have said no thank you if they had bothered to ask us. We’d never even HEARD of this organisation till last Friday, when it was way too late. We were so thrilled about our shortlisting until we found out how we got there and so, instead of celebrating, we’re in damage control mode.
Some folk have said they will at least read our Hugo packet material and if they like it, might nominate it next year. Others have just said, very loudly, that they will read nothing nominated by anyone on “that” list because it’s bound to be dreadful.
So instead of having something to be proud of, that we could perhaps use to increase our sales, we have something that will put people off, because “no smoke without fire!”
And that would be a shame, because we’re a very good publication that has launched a few careers over the years.
freezingkiwi
April 6, 2015 @ 5:32 am
Doesn’t the slate INVITE generalisation? At least amongst the people on said slate (I’ll note here I’m not including people like Black Gate & ASIM who were added without their knowledge/permission). I really don’t think “everyone has assholes” is a particularly useful response here: two of the most prominent sad/rabid puppies and Wright and VD, who have both openly advocated criminalising gay people. This isn’t just assholes, these people make me feel UNSAFE being a fan in this genre. Whether that’s rational or not, whether the Hugos are being destroyed or not, my gut reaction is simply that I don’t feel safe in a space where the flagship awards are going to such vile, toxic bigots.
D. D. Webb
April 6, 2015 @ 7:32 am
I’m pleased to say that every bit of this is news to me. It’s been a few years since I stopped taking the Hugos seriously, and shenanigans of this nature are a perfect reminder of why.
Jim C. Hines
April 6, 2015 @ 8:04 am
Hi Sue,
As I understand it, ASIM isn’t the only one that was caught unaware by all this. It sounds like some people weren’t notified at all. Others were, but didn’t understand what the whole Sad/Rabid Puppies thing was all about. And it really sucks that instead of being able to just celebrate and enjoy the moment, you’re now scrambling to do damage control.
I wish I had an easy answer to all of this. My editor was also on the Sad Puppies slate, and I’m 99% sure she was in a similar spot as you, if only because she’s never seemed to have any interest in the online back-and-forth, and has almost zero internet presence.
For what it’s worth, I think a lot of people recognize that at least a handful of the names on those slates weren’t consulted about it.
Best,
Jim
Becca Stareyes
April 6, 2015 @ 8:37 am
Correction: “The Three Body Problem” was translated by Ken Liu. It was written by Liu Cixin in Chinese.
Alessandra Kelley
April 6, 2015 @ 8:38 am
Worldcom is awesome. It’s huge! It’s full of thousands of fans of all different colors and interests and creeds and political bents, united by their love of written SFF.
No one group dominates it. Not the left wing conspiracy the Sad Puppies imagine and certainly not a fringe group like the Sad Puppies. It’s incredibly diverse.
And it has policies in place about harrassment. Diversity is (despite the Sad Puppies claims) welcomed. Bigotry and offensive behavior are not tolerated.
Mr Man
April 6, 2015 @ 8:47 am
I’ve been wondering since this started – what’s the evidence that Gamergate was involved in all of this? All I’ve seen is three tweets from that Daddy WarPig character and one reply from a GG’er. When Brianna Wu suddenly declared it was all GG on the night of the nominations, the GG’ers who responded seemed more bemused than anything else. That said – speak of the devil and he shall appear; people have blamed them for this so much that they’re now interested.
I can’t help but think people are blaming GG rather than admitting that there might actually be a group of sci-fi readers who agree with the sad puppies.
Alan DeHaan
April 6, 2015 @ 8:54 am
All of this going on explains something to me. While I, as a fan, don’t really look forward to the Hugos, I do usually hear the nominations have been released the second they are. Of course following authors I hear when voting for nominations is going on, and that kind of thing, and did that again this year. But this year, I didn’t see any broad announcement of “Hugo nominations!”
My reader friends didn’t tweet or RT anything that I saw. The few authors I follow on twitter didn’t seem to. Or at least didn’t vociferously. Sure, I’m not at Twitter 24/7, as I’m still in the era of the dumb phone and I am not able to read all tweets that are on my TL each day.
But that never mattered before. From the late 90s on, I had always heard when the Hugo noms were released, often within 6 hours of their release. This time, nope.
Crane Hana
April 6, 2015 @ 9:06 am
I am certainly not going to treat every entrant on the slate as if they were card-carrying allies of the SP/RP. Some of them are lovely people and organizations; others have shown some unrelated associations I would find troubling even without the slate.
I don’t think the whole genre is ‘broken’ because of this fracas. A book’s Hugo status ceased to be a consideration for me fifteen or so years ago. I generally can’t attend Worldcons and I can think of better immediate uses for $40. I look at sample pages and reviews, to determine if I want to buy or borrow a book. I support diverse fiction AND good storytelling – whenever I see too much heavy-handed proselytizing on either side of this debate, it pushes me away.
But I do think the dust-up is hella entertaining from the outside.
Jim C. Hines
April 6, 2015 @ 9:11 am
Well, there’s the Breitbart article supporting the Sad Puppies, written by a Big Name GamerGate supporter. The Daddy WarPig screenshots you mentioned. A report here of comments and addendums at Brad and Larry’s blogs inviting GamerGate to get involved. A quick Twitter search of Hugo + Gamergate turns up numerous examples of people using the #GamerGate tag to direct people to the Puppy slates and encourage “anti-SJW” voting. Here’s Larry’s welcome to GamerGaters popping up from the Breitbart article.
Nice try, though.
Mr Man
April 6, 2015 @ 9:13 am
Thanks – not sure why you included the catty little jab at the end though – it was an honest question.
Nick H.
April 6, 2015 @ 9:16 am
That you closed your comment with:
“I can’t help but think people are blaming GG rather than admitting that there might actually be a group of sci-fi readers who agree with the sad puppies.”
makes it look less like an honest question, and is probably what the ‘catty little jab’ was a response to. I think you’ve been caught bang to rights there.
Jim C. Hines
April 6, 2015 @ 9:19 am
Honest questions don’t usually end with jabs like, “I can’t help but think people are blaming GG rather than admitting that there might actually be a group of sci-fi readers who agree with the sad puppies.” You were also repeating one of the very common refrains I’m seeing from the various puppies, one which seems to come from a place of dishonesty, to put it kindly.
That said, if I misread your comment and you were truly just curious, then I apologize for the jab.
Mr Man
April 6, 2015 @ 9:26 am
That’s an interesting take – I didn’t actually mean to cause offence with my final suggestion. I worry that people will dismiss the sad puppy problem by waving a gamergate label at the issue; we need to admit that the sad puppies are ours, and not just an outsider boogeyman.
Mr Man
April 6, 2015 @ 9:27 am
I promise I was, and apologise for making it seem otherwise – I don’t often comment online, and probably lost track of the fact that this is a highly charged issue for many people. Thank you for the response.
Alessandra Kelley
April 6, 2015 @ 9:32 am
I’ll be honest, I wonder there is actually much GamerGater presence in this fiasco.
I still find it outrageous that the Sad Puppies *deliberately* reached out to the sorts of people who tell others they hope they will be raped to death and they are glad their pets died.
So even if the GamerGater presence is negligible, *that* the Sad Puppies thought it was a good idea to invite them in puts their judgement in a very poor light.
Jim C. Hines
April 6, 2015 @ 9:45 am
Thanks for clarifying. And yeah … lots of strong feelings around this one.
Susan
April 6, 2015 @ 9:48 am
Interesting – I was totally unaware of this whole thing. It sounds awful. 🙁
I would guess that the Hugos are a very big thing for writers, but maybe not so much for readers. I know that seeing “whatever-award-winner” on a book doesn’t make me more likely to read it.
…Actually, with Sci-Fi/Fantasy, it makes me slightly less likely to read it, based on past reading experience. Review sites like Goodreads or even reviews on Amazon seem like a better gauge, because they represent a wider audience (and thus I can get a more accurate idea of whether I personally might enjoy them.) Or a recommendation from a friend with similar reading tastes, which is how I found your books! 🙂
Matt
April 6, 2015 @ 10:55 am
Thanks for sharing the BlackGate article, it was lengthy but mirrored my feelings almost exactly about the rhetoric about the awards compared to the history of them. Hearing that they created a slate to push without bothering even the polite courtesy of notifying the people on the slate of their inclusion strikes me as they either thought the authors would be so honored to be associated with their cause or they’re just that oblivious to the thought or concerns of others were never even considered.
Sad Puppies, the Hugo Awards, and WTF | Blue night. Black iron. Golden rope.
April 6, 2015 @ 11:06 am
[…] a link to Jim Hines’ blog, which contains other links to get an overview on the Great Hugo Kerfuffle […]
Mark Samenfink (@MSamenfink)
April 6, 2015 @ 11:46 am
Interesting, so if I take your meaning correctly, the fact that I’m a gamer means that I can’t also be a life-long science fiction novel enthusiast, regardless of how much I may enjoy the authorship of, say, Poul Anderson, Philip K Dick, Frederick Pohl, C.J. Cherryh, Robert Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, Ben Bova, Kevin J Anderson, and I can keep going off the top of my head of books, both entertaining and life-changing, that I have loved.
But I am also a Gamer. So one of these loves becomes invalidated by the other, and I must therefore constrain myself, both from acting to break an awards-monopolizing blacklisting clique in a medium I enjoy because I happen to enjoy another, but also from spreading that information to anyone else who may share the view that a small clique aligned with a single publisher should have free reign to control the outcome of said awards that claim to be predicated on genre, not internal to said publisher.
Well, it’s an interesting hypothesis, people in large numbers who don’t like sci-fi bothering to nominate books they’ve never read for an award that means nothing to them in vast numbers. Let’s test it!
Here is a measurement (solely on twitter, not including data from KIA, 8chan, or FJ) of Gamergate’s numbers with clearly defined metrics. http://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2015/01/11/gamergate-4-population.html
His conclusion appears to be around 150,000 unique individuals, solely on twitter. By all means, check his work. Now, how many nominations were received this year for the Hugo awards? 2,122.[1] How many were there last year, prior to the existence of Gamergate and any of the information-sharing evidence you presented? 1,923.[2] Assuming the only difference is Gamergate’s existence, between those years, that’s 199 people. Gamergate can on the fly force a hashtag to trend internationally, like today with #GamergateArtCrit. What you would see, if we had organized people who didn’t care about sci-fi rather than inform those who might, the numbers difference would have been in the tens of thousands.
Citations
[1]: http://www.thehugoawards.org/2015/04/2015-hugo-award-finalists-announced/
[2]: http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2014HugoStatistics.pdf
DawnW
April 6, 2015 @ 12:31 pm
Long-time fan here, and this will be the first time I vote in the Hugos — specifically to slap NO AWARD on the Sad Puppy slate. I doubt I’m the only one, either.
bluestgirl
April 6, 2015 @ 1:00 pm
Me too! Just got a supporting membership! (Um, that doesn’t make me too late to vote, right?)
Jim C. Hines
April 6, 2015 @ 1:04 pm
“Interesting, so if I take your meaning correctly…”
You don’t. Your three paragraphs have nothing to do with anything being said or discussed here.
The rest seems to be a “Not All GamerGaters!” argument that ignores the evidence of the Sad/Rabid Puppies deliberately reaching out to get folks from GamerGate on board, as well as people in GamerGate doing the same. Yes, yes, not all GamerGaters. But enough to significantly affect the results.
J
April 6, 2015 @ 1:50 pm
As a Hugo voter, I have mixed reactions to the slate.
Most years, nothing I nominate makes it on the slate. This year, a couple things I nominated got on the slate (Yay Goblin Emperor!, Yay Anne Sowards!).
I don’t know if organizing a No Award block is going to help. It seems like that will continue the cycle of hurt and resentment. Certainly people have the right to use “No Award”. I’m very likely to vote “No Award” to Venereal Disease. I gave him a chance last year, but not this year (he’s in the editor category where I feel like personality matters more). I’m not worried about John C. Wright at all because with six nominations his votes are going to get split just like what happened to Seanan McGuire when she got five nominations. And Wright can at least write and tell as story unlike VD.
But to the point, a No Award voting block will annoy the SP crowd and they are planning for it. It fits into the “us vs. them” dynamic they have crafted and they will use it to recruit more people. And they will always find more people to recruit.
I feel that there needs to be a discussion of how do we be inclusive in fandom, including being inclusive of people we disagree with. Clearly, the SP and RPs have felt shunned. Some of the comments I read by “fans” reacting to SP who started pulling out their fan credentials and pedigrees and why their opinions should count more made me feel shunned.
There seems to be no end to the cycle of hurt.
I feel that allowing more nominations on the short list while limiting the number of works each member can nominate would help to be more inclusive of a wider range of tastes and preferences in SF&F fandom.
A discussion needs to be had about how do we include people we disagree with. When you have to talk down someone who hates you and wants to do you bodily harm, getting angry at them isn’t the answer. It’s more likely to escalate to violence if you get angry. Maybe that’s what SPs and the anti-SPs want. It sure seems like that is what they want.
Anger is very infectious and really difficult to direct into something positive. Largely because after the goals have been met, people don’t like to let it go. They often find something new to be angry about to keep it going.
From my understanding, when Correia was a Campbell award nominee, he didn’t know about the Hugos but was happy fans had nominated for the Not-a-Hugo award. At WorldCon, people were rude to him for being an outspoken libertarian, and that started the seed of resentment that has grown to the mess we are in now.
Room for disagreement I feel is important. It’s hard when the things they say are hurtful, but I have always felt that attacking the people who hurt me doesn’t relieve the pain I’m in. An eye-for-an-eye leaves the whole world blind and all that.
And life requires that we be friends with people we disagree with. I assume most people have friends/family that are liberal and friends/family that are conservative. How do you set a place at the table for crazy Uncle Larry? You be polite when he shows ups, you treat him fairly and equally, and you avoid topics of discussion where you will disagree or agree to disagree. You don’t invite him to move in or try to make him change who he is.
An author I appreciate is Ursula K. LeGuin. I’m a person with an intersex condition. When I read “The Left Hand of Darkness” I disagreed with a lot of it. It’s clearly written by an outsider. But I appreciate that I felt LeGuin left room for disagreement. And I realize that I can read LeGuin and feel safe reading her books because I feel she has respect for those people that disagree with her. And I’ve learned that reading something I disagree with isn’t going to damage or change me. I can put it down. I might rant to myself for a bit, but I’m stronger than words I read. I don’t need to control what other people think or believe or do.
Yes, disagreeing with people is all about boundaries. Harassment policies are a must. Ensuring safety is important. Having support for people who get or feel hurt is important. Making sure no one gets their feelings hurt… not very realistic.
So with the Hugo nominees, I say congratulation no matter how they got on the ballot. They are all people out doing what they love to do and are doing the best they can. I’ll vote how I’ll vote and so will other people. I’ll disagree with some or maybe a lot of the nominations. But I’ll work with what I’ve been given. It’s that way a lot of years and I think that is okay.
Martin
April 6, 2015 @ 2:39 pm
@Jim: At some point of your blog series on diversity in SF&F, i asked myself if it is necessary to address that topic in that breadth and depth.
Nothing could have answered that more concise than the SP/RP campaign and looking up the key players behind it: Yes it was necessary and probably will need to be repeated in the future.
Keep up the good work!
Martin
Mr Man
April 6, 2015 @ 2:54 pm
It’s not too late – the Sasquan page it says (with regards to who can vote) “In general this right is extended to all members who join the convention prior to the closing date of the ballot, which is expected to fall at the end of July 2015.”
Siera21
April 6, 2015 @ 3:52 pm
Gamergate is a pretty horrific “them” and they haven’t left a lot of ways to think of them other than as a group of people who have collectively terrorised individuals.
It’s actually kind of suprising that no-one has been injured or killed by SWATting yet. I think inviting a group who has the potential to have a body count in the near future is crossing a line that can not be uncrossed.
I used to quite enjoy Jim Butcher’s stuff and I am going to have a lot of trouble doing that now.
Nojh
April 6, 2015 @ 3:53 pm
There are multiple possible reasons why someone would think they’re required to have an opinion. Events like this have a very “us vs them” mentality. And with so many authors publishing their opinions, and articles being written about the event, and so on, it can feel like peer pressure to have an opinion.
There’s also business factors to consider. It’s becoming common for authors to be their own spokespersons/celebrity, usually on the internet in the form of blogs and twitter accounts, and such. These people might feel pressure, either from their own bottom line, or their publisher, to join the public discourse in order to be out there and be a name to better market their works, which creates pressure to form an opinion on events like this.
Just realize that is such a thing has having no opinion. Try to ignore the indirect pressure. With any direct pressure, simply respond with “I’ve no opinion” or “I haven’t taken the time to learn all the facts or research the issue.”
sistercoyote
April 6, 2015 @ 4:32 pm
But that’s just it. I haven’t seen anyone arguing for “making him change who he is” except the SP/RPs. Most of what I’ve seen from other people is “live and let live” or “hey, SFF is a big umbrella and there’s room for everyone.” VD and his ilk, from what I have seen, are far more interested in telling everyone in the family that they have to be more than polite to Uncle Larry — that Uncle Larry’s point of view is better than everyone else’s and that anyone in the family who doesn’t avoid those topics of conversation that will make him uncomfortable/cause disagreement needs to go away or they’re unfairly persecuting Good Old Larry. It’s only Larry who gets to decide who is and isn’t “family,” based entirely on whether or not they believe the whites are superior to all other races, that gay people should be rounded up and imprisoned, or that children shouldn’t have to share their toys because it makes them “weak.”
It’s not about getting one’s feelings hurt. That trivializes the conversation in a way I’m not at all comfortable with. And I am not saying I haven’t seen vituperation on both sides, because I have. But I only see one side inviting griefers and SWATters and people who would wish me raped and/or dead just because I’m a woman who dares to have an opinion into the conversation. (And yes, I’m sure there are #GGers who were already involved. Not the point.)
Yes, of course we can disagree and be polite. But you’re throwing the tone argument at the wrong people.
On a side note: can we please stop throwing “crazy” around in this context? Uncle Larry isn’t crazy: he’s set in his ways and his ways of being in the world don’t jibe with mine, but that doesn’t make him crazy. And saying he is does a disservice to crazy people, because words have meanings.
(And I just realized — sadly — that “Larry” wasn’t a name pulled out of a hat.)
THAT is the problem here.
Ken Marable
April 6, 2015 @ 5:15 pm
@Siera21 – A google search of Jim Butcher’s website turns up no mentions of “puppies” within the past year. The Jim Butcher News twitter feed has 0 mentions. Jim’s own twitter feed turns up 1 mention of puppies – and that was about the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. So Jim Butcher does not seem to be any sort of active participant in the SP or RP movements. He may be, like others who have commented in this thread and on other sites, caught up in it without his knowledge or approval. In fact, just like I don’t see the makers of the Lego Movie or Guardians of the Galaxy as rabid/sad supporters, I can easily see someone of Jim Butcher’s stature as not bothering to research and then getting caught up in the whole debate. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but sometimes benefit of the doubt can be appropriate.
Now, as to what that means for you (or anyone) is up to you (and them). At the very least, if you have enjoyed his work to date, I wouldn’t necessarily assume it to be tainted in the same way many people feel about Orson Scott Card’s work. Guilt by association may be worth not voting for someone to get an award (and hopefully clue them in to at least be aware of who they are tacitly supporting so that they can either clearly support or not), but guilt by association may be too circumstantial and lack enough evidence to make you stop enjoying something you have enjoyed for years. *shrug* I don’t know. That’s up to you.
Personally, like this isn’t even a blip in my enjoyment of, say, Guardians of the Galaxy, I don’t see it tainting Jim Butcher either. Many on the slate that are very problematic are usually very easy to identify beyond their inclusion on the slate (*ahem* John C. Wright) or those who are willingly riding the RP/SP coattails in order to boost their own stature are usually apparent as well (especially when you see the collective internet opinion of “Who?!!” in response to their nomination). With my voting, I am going to give a lot of thought to considerations of guilt by association with severely toxic groups (especially since some analysis seems to show that VD’s Rabid Puppies actually was more successful than the Sad Puppies despite their wider coverage, and maybe we need to rethink whose coattails are being ridden over there and the even greater toxicity of association that entails). But I don’t see my reading habits being affected very much at all – other than needing to hurry up and finish Ancillary Justice so that I can get Sword read soon! 🙂
Sue Bursztynski
April 6, 2015 @ 5:33 pm
Ah, Susan, J.Michael Straczynski, author of Babylon 5, says that as a child he used to “borrow” books from shops in the small towns in which his family lived(he did return them). He says that he figured if he was going to get into trouble it might as well be for good stuff, so he chose collections of Hugo winners, etc. 🙂
Goodreads may be broad, but it means a book can receive any score from 1 star to 5 and often does(my own novel did. So did Lord Of The Rings). I’ve seen books I love with two star ratings. Still, whatever works.
I think I discovered Jim’s books when buying for my school library. The girls love the fairy tale ones! And of course, there was his goblin story in ASIM.
sistercoyote
April 6, 2015 @ 5:53 pm
I am *fairly* certain (but not 100%) that larger categories, such as film and novel, were not entirely overrun by the “slate” in question.
Stephen Dunscombe
April 6, 2015 @ 5:53 pm
I’d argue “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” is way more SFF than “Wakulla Springs”. And the SFF elements in “Wakulla Springs” are… bolted on awkwardly, whereas the SFF (or “imaginary”, I guess, if you don’t buy it as SFF?) elements of “Dinosaur” are integral to the story.
(… My issue with “Wakulla Springs” was that it makes Johnny Weissmuller into a rapist…)
Ralph
April 6, 2015 @ 6:25 pm
I don’t recall threatening to rape anyone to death. Careful, your narrative is showing.
Stephen Dunscombe
April 6, 2015 @ 6:29 pm
I’m not worried about John C. Wright at all because with six nominations his votes are going to get split just like what happened to Seanan McGuire when she got five nominations.
How do you split the vote in a ranked-preference ballot?
Also, McGuire was nominated in three different categories.
Jim C. Hines
April 6, 2015 @ 6:38 pm
Almost every GG response I’ve seen so far has been, “But I didn’t do _______, therefore what you’re saying about GamerGate has no merit whatsoever!”
Look, I’m glad you didn’t threaten to rape anyone to death, at least that you can recall. Congratulations on not being a completely horrible human being. That doesn’t address the larger pattern of harassing behavior that’s been part of GamerGate since day one.
Sorry, but jumping up to say, “Hey, at least one GamerGate supporter doesn’t want to rape people to death” really isn’t the most rousing defense.
jnfr
April 6, 2015 @ 7:50 pm
Thanks so much for writing this, J. I’m still sorting through how I want to cast my votes, and your reminder to keep an open heart is a helpful one.
Mark Samenfink (@MSamenfink)
April 6, 2015 @ 10:28 pm
“You don’t. Your three paragraphs have nothing to do with anything being said or discussed here.”
After stating this, you re-affirmed my point, which is that you are implying any and all people who happen to have mailed in a nomination AND to be involved with Gamergate sent their nominations under illegitimate pretenses, as though they cannot be fans of more than 1 recreational pursuit.
Further, I find it interesting that you characterize my argument as a “Not All GamerGaters!” (a misnomer, GamerGate is a scandal and a hashtag, not an identity) argument. My argument isn’t “Not All” it’s “None”. Even if we were to assume the best possible scenario for your argument, that the small increase in number of nominations this year is entirely people involved in GG, all 199 of them, and were to also assume that the twitter presence of 150,000 people represents 100% of us (Not even close to true), this would mean that 0.0013% of us sent in a nomination. This best-case scenario for your argument cannot account for any claims regarding motive for those people, however since the number is so incredibly small even in these conditions that some strong motivation must have been required compared to the vast numbers that did not.
At no time did those of us involved in GamerGate organize any operation with any title to take any meaningful action regarding these awards. If we had, even a participation (still assuming smallest possible active numbers of us, based on the data from only twitter) of 1.5%, we would have more than doubled the number of nominations received. I’m telling you, on no uncertain terms, that the small increase to this year’s voting, in your best case scenario, is the result of awareness nominations can even be made being granted to only the most die-hard of Sci-Fi writing fanatics, who then cared enough to do so on their own recognizance.
TL:DR If the few of us who care about Sci-Fi enough to participate in this when we found out our voices could be heard, Daddy Warpig and Myself among that number, had wanted to muddy the purity of the Hugo awards, we would have organized an operation to do so, listing all steps so that even people who don’t read sci-fi or even care could be spoon-fed the feeling of activism without any initiative required. The result would have been more nominations than the total received for every year the Hugo awards have existed combined.
kate
April 7, 2015 @ 1:43 am
This may get messed up in the threading (it often does, so I think the error is in me and not the threading), so, I’m responding to J with the mixed reactions to the slate.
I’m an eville lib’ral, just to set some background.
I am always and forever happy to have more books to read, be they Mr. Torgersen’s or Mr. Hines’s. I am always and forever happy to get more perspectives and more input.
I am also always and forever entirely willing and interested in having fen of all political spectra, or none at all, hanging around in physical cons and other fannish places I frequent. Fandom at its best really is, to steal the 80/90s Republican phrase, a big tent. (How you would have no politics I don’t know, but many people are quite skilled at things I am not, so I figure the possibility exists.)
The question is not really (to me) how we deal with cranky Uncle Rob in person. If you accidentally get into a political conversation you find you don’t want to deal with in person, you can basically go, “Hey, how ’bout them Mets,” or possibly even better, given the context, “Hey, did you like that book of Weber’s recently?” (Or you can go find a movie to watch, or a card game to play, or go to a panel.) Otherwise, the point of engaging in in-person fandom is to be a fan with other fen, within certain societally reasonable parameters, which is generally fairly achievable.
One question that does seem pertinent, though, is how you deal with disagreement and tsuris online, when there both more and less ways to filter what’s going on. And that does seem to be the origin of a lot of the SP’s hurt. (Despite what you say about the specific instance of Correia and his first post-Campbell Con (for which I sympathise with him); I’m talking generally.) And I don’t really have a good answer, because (to me) a lot of what they consider beyond-the-pale so-called SJW behavior is some folks saying, “Could you not do things that way, because it hurts for this reason?” and then things escalating. More discussion does need to be had, long-term, about this, and ways in which people of good will can disagree.
I think to some extent, it comes down to things like this — As a queer woman, I’m neither leaving fandom nor stopping being queer, and that’s true of all sorts of folks I know. I’m also perfectly happy to have Jack P. Maker being a heterosexual conservative Catholic online, in spaces we both frequent. Is he willing to do the same with me?
This is all aside from the question of slates, lobbying, and the spaces in between. I think slates are gaming the system and not a good plan going forward, but there’s also an argument that eligibility posts are also their own form of gaming the system. I don’t think they are, but I respect the opinions of people who do.
(The best thing about LHOD– well, one of the best things — is that it leaves so much room for chewing over it and drawing more out of the marrow of its writing.)
Randall Turner
April 7, 2015 @ 3:33 am
Excellent post. And good for you, Mr. Hines, for allowing open discussion without censoring your comments.
I’m an avid, very old fan. This incestuous slap-fight is fascinating.
A general observation? Vote for the best stories and keep your politics out of it. Anything else is unethical.
Randall Turner
April 7, 2015 @ 3:51 am
I’m just curious, Ken, what’s an example of a “who?” author from their group.
Also, that someone like Butcher wouldn’t know of or care about this silliness either way seems eminently reasonable.
G_Man
April 7, 2015 @ 8:25 am
Jim, I have a question for you in response to your answer. There are a variety of ideologies/belief systems where negative things by done by some self-identified members. These members are often referred to as the fringe. In the case of GG, those that are threatening violence and harassing others.
In your opinion, what would you like to see to “address” the problem? Other people that support the ideology denounce the fringe? Something else? Or is there even something that can be addressed?
Jim C. Hines
April 7, 2015 @ 8:40 am
In the case of GG, we’re talking about a movement that was founded on the basis of harassment, particularly the harassment of women. This isn’t something that can be dismissed as “fringe.”
Mr Man
April 7, 2015 @ 9:01 am
I’m going to second the idea that the Hugos matter to some readers! I don’t tend to have a whole lot of reading time, and I’m always behind on what’s out, so I’ve tended to use the Hugo nominees as a “must read” list for catching up on things. (It’ll be the Nebulas nominees this year.)
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April 7, 2015 @ 9:45 am
[…] Jim C. Hines, “10 Hugo Thoughts” […]
on buying some hugo awards, and voting NO AWARD | Crime and the Blog of Evil
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[…] I missed Jim Hines’s post on this, wherein he takes apart some of the arguments made about NO AWARD somehow being cheating… […]
AmyCat
April 8, 2015 @ 2:49 am
Craig, I’ll be at WorldCon (dba “Book Universe” in the Dealers’ Room), and I hope to see you there too. I know many on the ConCom and a lot of people in Pacific Northwest fandom, and there’s no sympathy in fandom there for “white supremacists” or “homophobes”. I’ve been looking forward to this WorldCon since it was in the bid stage, and damned if I’ll let a bunch of “puppies” turn it into a “toxic situation” for you or ANYone…
Hugo Slates Inspire Altered States | File 770
April 8, 2015 @ 5:48 am
[…] […]
David Selig
April 8, 2015 @ 11:29 am
I also didn’t think that story was SFF. But I have seen a lot of whining from the Pupppies group about it and it’s never about that (at most it’s mentioned tangentially) – it’s always that it’s a terribly written message fiction, neither of which is remotely true in my not so humble opinion.
Sarah Hoyt, one of the Puppies allied authors and bloggers, even went so far as to proclaim that Rachael Swirsky hates all working class people and considers all of them racist and sexist because the bad guys in the story are working class (which IIRC isn’t even stated in the story itself).
sistercoyote
April 8, 2015 @ 3:06 pm
Thanks to this thread I just read the story and I also don’t recall any explicit or implicit “classing” of the Bad Guys. Or the Good Guys, for that matter.
J. C. Salomon
April 8, 2015 @ 4:41 pm
“I’m pretty sure that the SP ballot is there to keep genre fiction as minority unwelcoming as they possibly can too.”
Sad Puppies 2 last year suggested Sarah Hoyt’s A Few Good Men (it failed to be nominated), a story quite literally built around a gay romance.
SP3 this year suggested women, ethnic minorities, gay activists, and people from all over the political spectrum, though “not your business” may have been over-represented. (And VD didn’t remove those names either, when he copied the list for his self-promoting Rabid Puppies.)
James
April 9, 2015 @ 8:30 am
I wouldn’t worry about race and gender too much at WorldCon if my experience last year in London was anything to go by. Writers in genre are of many different shapes and sizes, so many in fact that one might say they are united by being an odd seeming assortment of people at the best of times.
As for the specific issue of sexuality, there were a broad cross section of genders and sexualities present. Cis people, trans people, hetero, homo and ace were all represented. My only advice would be to realise that in the main, you will not be being actively observed; some trans people acted in a fashion that made me feel they were hyper self-conscious. It is understandable, but I felt they were more watchful than they may have needed to be.
In the main I found everyone I met, from any side of the world, seemed relaxed, open and friendly. I hope you are able to go and enjoy a similar experience.
Gugol
April 9, 2015 @ 1:06 pm
This was perfect. Thank you. I’ve been following this conflict closely, and your response is the most fair that I’ve seen.
The United States of Rachael Does Not Negotiate With Terrorists ← Rachael Acks: Sound and Nerdery
April 10, 2015 @ 3:00 pm
[…] 10 Hugo Thoughts (Jim C Hines) […]
Valentine
April 10, 2015 @ 5:06 pm
This was a good layout of thoughts. Thanks.
I work in a bookstore and as the token SF/F reader in my store, I’m constantly recommending books in that genre to customers from authors with all sort of backgrounds, political affiliation, religion, etc. If the book is good, I tell people about it. Most of our customers will take a recommendation from a bookstore clerk over an Award or List. Many customers will walk directly to the Staff Recommendation shelf and walk out with an assortment of our picks alone. (Maybe I should start a Bookstore clerk slate next year – Ha!)
Awards are inherently “broken”, don’t believe me, check out the Oscar campaigns. Was the Hugo’s broken, I’m with you, I don’t know. But, I don’t base my reading on what award someone won or who made the NYT bestseller list either. And neither do customers.
Honestly, I’m more mad that this whole SP drama is keeping several of my favorite authors away from writing their own books because they feel the need to weigh in with blog entries, opt-ed pieces, tweeting, or just generally talking about it! So, go back to work Jim 😉
Sue Bursztynski
April 10, 2015 @ 7:51 pm
Well said, Valentine! I can understand why you guys feel you need to say something, but get on with the writing!
Danny in Canada
April 13, 2015 @ 12:42 am
As I understand it, there’s at least two authors who were included on Brad Torgersen’s slate because they were friends of his.
I’m sure they’re competent writers, though. I’m sure he genuinely thought their works were among the five best for 2014.
Gary
April 13, 2015 @ 12:37 pm
You know, I was a SciFi reader back before it was cool. Before Star Wars when the non-geek/non-nerd crowd glommed on.
It used to be about expanding your imagination. About extrapolation. It was fun.
It is so damn sad that a bunch of self absorbed artist assholes have taken up the genre and fight like they’re in third grade.
They should abolish all awards for SciFi. If you’re writing SciFi and worry about awards you ain’t what the genre is about. You’re a source of pollution.
Damn!
Nepennin
May 27, 2015 @ 5:26 pm
Bullcaca. Only the fringe did this, and not the whole. I’m pro-Gamergate/#NotYourShield myself, and I sure as heck didn’t threaten anybody or harass anybody.Many of us feel that the people involved made shitty games and then tried to get said shitty games praised to high heaven without getting caught. Only thing is, they did get caught, didn’t like it and now have seized on this incident as a way to not want to listen to what the pro-GamerGate side has to say. Nasty attacks aside, can the grievances be listened to without rancor?
Jim C. Hines
May 27, 2015 @ 5:33 pm
So your argument is that the people who founded GamerGate as a movement…are actually the fringe? That’s some fascinating logic there.