Redshirts wins Hugo for Best Novel

[mormont]

Christopher Priest (who'd normally not even get in the front door of the Hugos)

This would be Christopher Priest, who's been nominated for a Hugo four times and was Guest of Honour at WorldCon in 2005?

[I know I know]

Reforming the Hugos is probably impossible, but you can certainly influence them more. Next year's Worldcon is in London, which should mean a (somewhat) more ecelectic ballot, as long as the Brits remember to nominate.

Looking at the books this year, I think The Adjacent by Christopher Priest (who'd normally not even get in the front door of the Hugos) is a clear frontrunner. Hopefully Alastair Reynolds's new book will be good. A Gaiman nomination would seem likely. This year otherwise hasn't proven too great so far, but then I'm way down on my reading this year and may have missed some really good stuff.

I wouldn't quite go that far, but IMO it's certainly better than Redshirts, Blackout/All Clear and Spin. The City and the City, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, American Gods, Blue Mars and Green Mars are much better winners. It's probably about a par with Barrayar and Doomsday Book. The other winners in that period I haven't read.

Blue Mars and Green Mars.

The idea that they won prizes from the same group awarding prizes to Bridecicle and Redshirts feels like a molestation of them.

[Plessiez]

They'd Rather Be Right won a Hugo in 1955. Would take some effort to pick a worse winner than that, surely?

Though looking at a list of past winners, I think Miéville's The City & the City is the only winner in the last decade that doesn't seem like, at best, a slightly odd choice. (Before that, I guess American Gods or A Deepness In The Sky are unobjectionable? Neither of those would be anywhere near my pick for best novel for their respective year, but they don't seem like unusually bad or strange choices.)

Actually, was there ever a period of consistently good Hugo Award winners? The 90s had A Fire Upon The Deep as well as the KSR Mars books, but also lots of early Bujold and The Diamond Age. The 80s had Downbelow Station, Cyteen and Neuromancer, but also Foundation's Edge, which is surely as egregious an example of voting for an author and not a book as any other winner. I'm not familiar enough with early periods to have an opinion, really. (I've read most of the winners, I think, but not necessarily much of the competition.)

[Darth Richard]

It's a competitive field.

Imho, Bridecicle beats them. I can't think of any other EscapePod episode that I enjoyed so little that I actually got annoyed with EscapePod for even fielding it; it was jaw-dropping to hear later that a dumb story with such dumb science (and super-dumb sexuality) was even nominated for HUGO, let alone won. A reminder that "awards" are nothing but overhyped blogger opinion-posts, often by mediocre bloggers.

But Redshirts is probably Scalzi's least good work... not bad, but not good either. And now, Iain M. Banks - the IMHO best scifi author of recent decades, just passed away a few months ago - won't have any HUGOs. Not that his latest nom Hydrogen Sonata is as good as Algebraist (his previous nom). But now Banks is dead and hugo-less, and Scalzi won for "Redshirts".

HUGO, tsk. It's like a silly youtube channel with too many subscribers.

The Hydrogen Sonata wasn't even nominated. I assume because God is dead, Satan has won, etc.

[Werthead]

This would be Christopher Priest, who's been nominated for a Hugo four times and was Guest of Honour at WorldCon in 2005?

His nominations were all quite some time ago and the 2005 WorldCon was in the UK, which was the point I was making ;) Like with Banks being nominated in 2005, the awards actually have to be held in the UK (which they are only once per decade or so) for most British authors* to get a look-in, no matter if British SF authors are actually doing a lot better than American ones (as they are at the moment).

* Gaiman being resident in the USA, Rowling being a global megasuperstar and the likes of Stross being proactive in the US SF online scene. The only exception recently has been Mieville.

Actually, was there ever a period of consistently good Hugo Award winners?

I think you can say most of the time from the 1950s through to the early 1990s or so, then either the winner was deserved or, if not, it was usually fairly explicable why. There's also many years when the entire shortlist is made up of classics, and any of them would be worthy winners.

From the mid-1990s or so onwards, things become problematic and the lists patchier. There are lots of reasons why, though on top of the parochial, 'old boys/girls' club' angle there's also the simple fact that SF - and the Hugos, traditionally in the novel category anyway - shunned fantasy before the turn of the century unless they could rationalise it as SF) has been in decline for a long time, both in terms of quality and sales. I remember a discussion here concluding that the last truly great SF novels published were Ender's Game (1989 and !) and Hyperion (1989), with later mentioned titles not gaining much traction. As a result, the Best Novel category has sometimes looked a bit desperate due to lack of choice as much as anything else (hence why Robert J. Sawyer gets nominated a lot).

What can be done about that problem is more one for the publishers, though self-publishing seems to be a way of approaching it: Michael Sullivan - a successful fantasy author, at least so far - reported finding little interest in his new SF novel so is self-publishing it, whilst Hugh Howey self-published his SF series after being rejected by the publishers, apparently for commercial reasons. In the meantime, it's led to more respect for fantasy at the Hugos, which is good, but rather inconsistently (which is why I'd have a separate Best SF and Best Fantasy novel category).

[Datepalm]

I remember a discussion here concluding that the last truly great SF novels published were Ender's Game (1989 and !) and Hyperion (1989), with later mentioned titles not gaining much traction.

Thats a bit harsh. I don't know about deathless classics, but I can think of plenty of good SF that isn't winning and isn't making the ballot, that I would much prefer to have people talk about and be aware of (as well as their authors getting that recognition and fuzzy feels and whatever other dubious things come with a Huge) to Redshirts or Among Others or the Graveyard Book. So I don't buy the death of SF as an excuse for dodgy voting.

[Seli]

They'd Rather Be Right won a Hugo in 1955. Would take some effort to pick a worse winner than that, surely?

Though looking at a list of past winners, I think Miéville's The City & the City is the only winner in the last decade that doesn't seem like, at best, a slightly odd choice. (Before that, I guess American Gods or A Deepness In The Sky are unobjectionable? Neither of those would be anywhere near my pick for best novel for their respective year, but they don't seem like unusually bad or strange choices.)

...

Nope, City & the City is (as far as I understand) hardly genre. Any work can be discredited :)

[Jerol]

I had not realized that Scalzi had built up such a reservoir of rage among some you. I think the phrase "Lighten up Francis" applies here all too well.

[Datepalm]

Nope, City & the City is (as far as I understand) hardly genre. Any work can be discredited :)

tc&tc is very genre, imo. It's unconventionally so, but it is extremely rooted in SFF and possibly only makes sense as SFF.

[Plessiez]

Like with Banks being nominated in 2005, the awards actually have to be held in the UK (which they are only once per decade or so) for most British authors* to get a look-in, no matter if British SF authors are actually doing a lot better than American ones (as they are at the moment).

* Gaiman being resident in the USA, Rowling being a global megasuperstar and the likes of Stross being proactive in the US SF online scene. The only exception recently has been Mieville.

It's depressing to see that Banks's Use of Weapons wasn't even shortlisted in 1991 (was it nominated at all? I think it was eligible for that year).

That said, it's interesting that Ken MacLeod's been nominated a few times (2001, 2002 and 2006) and I don't think the awards were held in the UK on any of those years. His internet presence is nowhere near that of Stross, either. (Though I seem to remember he was fairly popular on rec.arts.sf.written around that time?)

I don't know about deathless classics, but I can think of plenty of good SF that isn't winning and isn't making the ballot, that I would much prefer to have people talk about and be aware of (as well as their authors getting that recognition and fuzzy feels and whatever other dubious things come with a Huge) to Redshirts or Among Others or the Graveyard Book. So I don't buy the death of SF as an excuse for dodgy voting.

Yeah, I'd agree with this.

If the problem was merely a lack of good books, I don't think people would complain as much about the Hugos to begin with. The primary complaint isn't that the recent winners aren't as good as books published twenty years ago; it's that they aren't as good as other books that should have actually won. ((I'm a year late, but I'm bemused that Egan's Clockwork Rocket didn't at least make the 2012 shortlist, for instance.)

I don't really agree that SF is in decline either, though the sort of SF that traditionally won the Hugo may well be.

Nope, City & the City is (as far as I understand) hardly genre. Any work can be discredited :)

It's a police procedural set in a fantasy universe and both the setting and the plot fundamentally rely on wide-spread and unarguable magic. How is it "hardly genre"? (Then again, I think The Children of Men should have won in 1993, and people claim that isn't genre, too...)

[Datepalm]

Well, it's extremely arguable, the magic, but that's kind of the point. Still very genre.

I'm not sure about the "sort of SF that won the hugo" argument either. It's never been all rockets and robots, whatever people like to claim. Or, rather, the rockets and robots were always there to serve some intellectual or emotional function, which is, you know, how good literature tends to work in general. I don't see the old Hugos being dominated by some monolithic, manly, Hard SF stuff at all. Dune, Lord of Light, Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed, several of Heinlein's trippier efforts, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Neuromancer - all Hugo winners.

[David Selig]

His nominations were all quite some time ago and the 2005 WorldCon was in the UK, which was the point I was making ;) Like with Banks being nominated in 2005, the awards actually have to be held in the UK (which they are only once per decade or so) for most British authors* to get a look-in, no matter if British SF authors are actually doing a lot better than American ones (as they are at the moment).

I checked the previous Worldcons held in England before the one in 2005, and the nominees were American only with one or two exceptions. The 2005 seems to have been a major outlier.

Thats a bit harsh. I don't know about deathless classics, but I can think of plenty of good SF that isn't winning and isn't making the ballot, that I would much prefer to have people talk about and be aware of (as well as their authors getting that recognition and fuzzy feels and whatever other dubious things come with a Huge) to Redshirts or Among Others or the Graveyard Book. So I don't buy the death of SF as an excuse for dodgy voting.

I agree with that, there's plenty of quality SF still being published, so that's not a good excuse.

I read only a handful of 2012 SF novels yet all of them, except Redshirts, were high quality and would've been a solid winner, if not quite a masterpiece and a future classic.

[Werthead]

Thats a bit harsh.

Personally I thought it was the biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard in my life ;) But that's the way the discussion went, or so my decaying neurons recall.

I don't know about deathless classics, but I can think of plenty of good SF that isn't winning and isn't making the ballot, that I would much prefer to have people talk about and be aware of (as well as their authors getting that recognition and fuzzy feels and whatever other dubious things come with a Huge) to Redshirts or Among Others or the Graveyard Book. So I don't buy the death of SF as an excuse for dodgy voting.

I agree, though I think the declining visibility of SF is definitely a problem overall. But even so there's a lot more good stuff published than is ever nominated.

City & the City is (as far as I understand) hardly genre.

I think it is:

As with a couple of Mieville's previous works, there's some kind of schism/quantum event thing going on which eventually becomes critical to the plot. I'm not sure if it's SF, but it's certainly spec fic.

That said, it's interesting that Ken MacLeod's been nominated a few times (2001, 2002 and 2006) and I don't think the awards were held in the UK on any of those years. His internet presence is nowhere near that of Stross, either. (Though I seem to remember he was fairly popular on rec.arts.sf.written around that time?)

I believe you're right, and I think he attracted a lot of attention for being a fairly left-wing and political SF author (Banks was as well, but was much less overt about it). That attracted attention in American circles because American SF is - or has traditionally been - dominated by the right, so that counter-viewpoint I assume was interesting.

I don't really agree that SF is in decline either, though the sort of SF that traditionally won the Hugo may well be.

Yes to the latter, and that's part of the issue. No to the former, SF is definitely getting the raw end of the deal right now, certainly compared to fantasy. That's clear from the number of new SF authors published every year compared to the number of new fantasy ones.

Though having just said that, I did receive a review copy of the debut novel from a new American female SF novelist (Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice), which hasn't happened...erm, ever.

[Werthead]

Stop the press, John Ringo has explained precisely why Scalzi won:

There's nothing wrong with Scalzi's writing. This is a reasonably good novel (from what I've heard) with no real SF or literary merit beyond being a reasonably good novel. But he's been speaking truth to power about the degradation of women in SF along with other idiocracy and so he's beloved by all the hasbeen liberal neurotics who control the Hugo voting and balloting. Look to many more in the future as long as he toes the Party line. Huzzah.

Well, that clears that up then.

[Datepalm]

Ringo: Well, at least that might make Scalzi feel better (I guess he didn't ask to win with a mediocre novel.) He's got both the PC parade (ie, me) complaining that him winning means theres an old white dude hegemony and that SF needs more inclusiveness, and John fucking Ringo declaring he won because it's all bleeding heart hippies. I suppose it could really be both.

I think it is:

As with a couple of Mieville's previous works, there's some kind of schism/quantum event thing going on which eventually becomes critical to the plot. I'm not sure if it's SF, but it's certainly spec fic.

I think the point is that there is nothing supernatural or even scientifically odd going on at all, it's all social norms all the way. (well, that's my reading and I'm sticking to it.) Which might make it Social SF, but it so teases the reader with the promise of being some kind of urban fantasy or SF or something, that I can't help seeing genre as integral to the book anyway.

[beniowa]

Oh, John Ringo, no!

Did you nominate or vote? If you didn't, have you ever thought about it? It's something I saw mentioned in the 'reformation' thread (and other places) - a lot of eligible people don't take part in the process. What would increase the participation rate (and thus get Hugos that reflect more peoples' opinions)?

I agree that the biggest problem is just getting people who already have memberships to nominate and vote. There's already free ebooks and information on the nominated works, yet people still don't vote. Why? What's the issue here? I've been trying to think of ideas to increase participate the last two days, but still haven't come up with anything.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Oh, John Ringo, no!

I agree that the biggest problem is just getting people who already have memberships to nominate and vote. There's already free ebooks and information on the nominated works, yet people still don't vote. Why? What's the issue here? I've been trying to think of ideas to increase participate the last two days, but still haven't come up with anything.

I think for that, you have to figure out why people aren't voting, which is why I asked. I might move back to the 'Reform' thread, though, rather than derail the Redshirts thread.

[beniowa]

Yeah, I just realized the Reform thread might be better place for it.

Move along, folks. Move along.

[Seli]

tc&tc is very genre, imo. It's unconventionally so, but it is extremely rooted in SFF and possibly only makes sense as SFF.

I never read it, and am going by other discussions :blushing: .

I really have to try Mieville again at some point.

[Plessiez]

Well, it's extremely arguable, the magic, but that's kind of the point. Still very genre.

I remember thinking that the "unseeing" stuff was arguably not-magic early on (and could be explained as social convention/training), yes. But I thought that some of the things that happened later could only be explained by it being something definitely magical in origin. Been a while since I read the book though.

I'm not sure about the "sort of SF that won the hugo" argument either.

Hmm. I should probably have said "sort of SF that tended to be over-represented in the Hugos". Didn't want to suggest that all Hugo Award winners before a certain point were all of the same type at all. But I do think that (a significant number of) Hugo voters have a bias towards a certain type of SF -- I wouldn't call it hard SF as such, but it's some sort of hard-ish SF / space opera / military SF blend. Is "authors like Heinlein/Niven/Brin/Card/Bujold" at all meaningful as a label to anyone but me?

But my point was (meant to be) that this type of book used to be represented by lots of different authors and is now represented by a much smaller number. And so rather than having votes of this group of voters split over several books each year, they always go to a Scalzi or to a Stross (I don't think the ubiquity of Stross and Scalzi on the shortlist over the last decade can be solely explained by their popularity as bloggers, although it's obviously a big factor.)

Dune, Lord of Light, Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed, several of Heinlein's trippier efforts, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Neuromancer - all Hugo winners.

How embarrassed should I be that I'd never heard of Where Late the Sweet Birds sang until I checked the list of Hugo award winners?