Hugo Drama III: Will "the ilk" come to Spokane?

[TannerSack]

GRRM posted on his "Not A Blog" about the importance of reading all the works before making a judgement about whether to nominate "No Award" over any nominee. I agreed at first that it was a good idea, with some hesitation, and then someone on the blog comments noted something that swayed me otherwise and I would like to see what others opinion would be?

They stated that even if the author/artist is worthy they didn't feel right voting for them unless these nominees spoke out on their opinion on being voted in by a "slate". I concur with this, if they feel its beneficial enough for them that they will remain presumably ambiguous, well, that is pretty weak IMHO. Also, if they do not care either/or then why should we bother nominating them when clearly there were higher quality fiction in the genre this year.

To be frank, if any of these authors were okay with this "slate", sabotage style, then they deserve nothing.

[Squab]

GRRM posted on his "Not A Blog" about the importance of reading all the works before making a judgement about whether to nominate "No Award" over any nominee. I agreed at first that it was a good idea, with some hesitation, and then someone on the blog comments noted something that swayed me otherwise and I would like to see what others opinion would be?

They stated that even if the author/artist is worthy they didn't feel right voting for them unless these nominees spoke out on their opinion on being voted in by a "slate". I concur with this, if they feel its beneficial enough for them that they will remain presumably ambiguous, well, that is pretty week IMHO. Also, if they do not care either/or then why should we bother nominating them when clearly there were higher quality fiction in the genre this year.

To be frank, if any of these authors were okay with this "slate", sabotage style, then they deserve nothing.

I agree, just reading all the works may sway you in one direction or another. the Hugos may then be about the quality of the works and not another battle in a pseudo political war. We definietely need to vote according to which slate we support.

And if the artists dont come out and either withdraw or say they support the slate they were mentioned in, regardless of if they knew or care about it, i think that shows cowardice and should not be voted for.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Squab,

Or, you could vote for the works you like regardless of the slate.

[felice]

My inclination is to default to putting No Award first in every category with fewer than two non-slate finalists, and the non-slate candidate second in cases where there's a single such finalist. I'm reluctant to award a Hugo to anyone on the basis of "it was the only real nomination", no matter how good it was. If I have time, I will evaluate slate candidates and reconsider whether any of them belong above No Award, but evaluating non-slate candidates will take priority.

Special cases:
I don't think the Dramatic Presentations were overly influenced by the puppies; we're dealing with a smaller field here, and most of the works they nominated would probably have been on the ballot without their support.
Editors - I'm not keen on these categories anyway, since at best we can only evaluate their taste rather than how they influenced the quality of the work they published, and even that requires being familiar with an unreasonably large body of work to have an informed opinion.
Semiprozine - I think uniquely, the only nomination shared by both Sad and Rabid in this category didn't make the ballot. As ASIM points out, Sad nominations Abyss & Apex and ASIM are the first two alphabetical listings on Ralan, and probably weren't chosen because they fit the puppy "ideology". Given that they presumably had significant non-puppy support, and there are multiple non-slate zines to compare them to, I'd be more inclined to consider voting them above No Award.

[TannerSack]

Squab,

Or, you could vote for the works you like regardless of the slate.

Well, I think you would agree that these are not the strongest nominees that even an average questionable Hugo ballot would incorporate.

Lets look at the "best novel" category for example, you and I are both a fan of Jim Butcher, but clearly his books are not "best of year" material. That said, I might vote for him despite the fact if I felt the other nominees were not of high quality(which I do not, some imho, are quite good). Why should I vote for him if I think he is taking the high road for no distinct reason other then to preserve his own integrity to both sides? I also see such things as cowardice, total self interest and/or disinterest in the Hugo entirely. I would not hasten to try and help reward such a practice, why would you?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tanner,

No argument. My point is only that you don't have to vote a slate as Squab implied.

[mormont]

This is not an ideal set of nominees, by any means. But it is the set of nominees that exist, and we can only start from where we are.

I haven't decided if I'll buy a supporting membership yet - but if I do, I'm going to ignore the slates and assess the candidates as if they did not exist. The slates do not deserve to influence my vote one way or another.

[Lily Valley]

Can some smart person help me with this logic? I am reading a /=a here.

"The purpose of science fiction is not to tell a good story. Most of what people call ‘good stories’ are not stories that promote social justice. So ‘good story’ or not good story, (and there we get to matters of taste) they are not good science fiction. Good science fiction is only that science fiction which promotes social justice."

Context from file770.com Courtesy of John Ringo

The original fb post was not available.

Edit: after continued reading (after exhausting my WAT?? lens) I decided to repost the entire foolishness:

So let’s drill this down to Science Fiction. Science Fiction has, historically, been something that looked to the future of technology and societies and tried to glean what might be possible. It has also, often, been an avenue for proposing change. Many of the most ‘misogynistic’ and ‘racists’ authors of the early SF years were, in fact, far FAR ahead of their time in proposing racial and gender equity or near equity.

To the Social Justice Warriors (their term and not one of derogation in their eyes) of SF fandom, the TRUE PURPOSE of Science Fiction is solely and ONLY such promotion. Let me repeat that as an axiom:

To the Social Justice Warriors of Science Fiction publishing and fandom, the true and only purpose of science fiction is to promote increased equity in the arena of social justice.

The purpose of science fiction is not to tell a good story. Most of what people call ‘good stories’ are not stories that promote social justice. So ‘good story’ or not good story, (and there we get to matters of taste) they are not good science fiction. Good science fiction is only that science fiction which promotes social justice.

If there is a choice between two good social justice stories, the choice is not based on which is the better story or which is better written. At that point you look at which promotes social justice better. So if Author A is a person of color or a transgenderist and Author B is a cis-male, even if he is a social justice warrior, the BETTER STORY is that which is written by the person of color or transgenderist UNLESS such person writes a story which does NOT promote social justice in which case they are a traitor and shall be treated as such.

The sole an only point is to view every work in a lens of ‘how does this promote social justice?

My question being is there any logic at all here? Any?

[Lyanna Stark]

My question being is there any logic at all here? Any?

I feel my IQ fell with 20 points just reading that section, so I'd say no, there is no logic, but after reading it I am probably not smart enough to comment anymore.

You know what I am thinking? This may just make more sense after a coupla drinks.

[Darth Richard II]

John Ringo is not exactly the poster child for sanity.

[Ran]

Just look at his Scalzi case. According to the "SJW Rules of Logic" he claims exists, Saladin Ahmed (PoC writing about PoC in a non-European setting) oshould have been their overwhelming choice. He ended up not only not winning, but ending up fourth. Fifth was Mira Grant.

His claim that the wagon's were "circled" after the 1986 win of Ender's Game is idiotic. What won the year after? Speaker for the Dead. Why did Card win? Besides writing a cracking novel in EG, he was extremely present at SF cons, pressing the flesh as they say, and I think was even an SFWA officer around that time. Doubtless his enthusiasm and interest was genuine, but it certainly had the effect of making him a well-known, at least somewhat popular figure among the fans who were likeliest to vote. Simple as that. Scalzi now is what Card was back then, in terms of social factors, so is it a huge surprise he won with a bit of a Star Trek fan-wank?

Plenty of contrary examples to Ringo's case.

[Maia]

It seems that Baen as a whole has a massive chip on it's shoulder for not being sufficiently recognized in the Hugos recently. Which, maybe they even have a bit of a point, as a publisher that has brought a lot of good, but more or less abandoned/forgotten SF back into print, as well as having a lot of currently running popular SF series, etc. They probably merited more recognition - as a publisher.

Unfortunately for them, they just don't have any truly deserving new stand-alone books since Bujold went off her game, though. And, of course, the Puppies didn't even nominate Baen all that much in their slates, for some reason, but they are Baen authors and there is fertile ground for shared feeling of disgruntlement, etc.

[sologdin]

why johhny ringo, it looks like someone just walked arcross your grave.

he's an absolute idiot. am loving the bogus 'reading' of scalzi:

Redshirts by John Scalzi was a fairly banal Star Trek fan-fic that featured a cast of Security that as I was told (never read it) was a fair SJW cross-section.

worthless, beyond mendacious, &c. i marvel that anyone takes this clown seriously.

[David Selig]

Redshirts sucked, but all these claims of it being some SJW propaganda are beyond idiotic.

It's kind of hilarious that the Puppies are whining about that Hugos are "too literary and elitist" and "preachy message fiction" and their go-to example of that is John Scalzi, who writes just about the most simplistic, commercial and accessible stuff in non-YA SFF. His Hugo win was for a humour novel making fun of Star Trek the only messages of which were "don't be a asshole hack writer of dreck TV shows if that causes deaths of real people" and some trite "seize the day and live life to the fullest" stuff in the codas, which is about as uncontroversial as it gets.

[sologdin]

it may well be a horrible book, but the comical thing in the quoted bit is the objectivist-style "i have not read the book but here is my unlearned opinion on it anyway."

[Lightysnake88]

Wait...nobody said it yet?

I've gotta say it? Well, okay then.

OH JOHN RINGO NO

[Cubarey]

GRRM posted on his "Not A Blog" about the importance of reading all the works before making a judgement about whether to nominate "No Award" over any nominee. I agreed at first that it was a good idea, with some hesitation, and then someone on the blog comments noted something that swayed me otherwise and I would like to see what others opinion would be?

They stated that even if the author/artist is worthy they didn't feel right voting for them unless these nominees spoke out on their opinion on being voted in by a "slate". I concur with this, if they feel its beneficial enough for them that they will remain presumably ambiguous, well, that is pretty weak IMHO. Also, if they do not care either/or then why should we bother nominating them when clearly there were higher quality fiction in the genre this year.

To be frank, if any of these authors were okay with this "slate", sabotage style, then they deserve nothing.

Let's see if they did not withdraw their names from consideration after being nominated on a slate that gives us a pretty good idea that whatever objections they may have to the concept of a slate it does not overwhem there desire fora Hugo. Second, the fact is that there have been many years where all the nominees on a given category were less worthy then a pice that was not nominated, in those cases people still voted for the nominee they believed to be the best of a questionable lot.

It seems to me that your objection is with the Slate and you are not willing to consider any candidate that was nominated on the slate even if is the best piece nominated, You have a perfect right to have that opinion and vote accordingly, but its a far cry from how people voted in previous years where they were presented with a listed of nominees which many believed did not include the best of the category publsihed that year but still routinely voted for a winner. So it's seems to me that your way at looking at things is a bit hypocritical or at least avoids dealing with the fact that in many categories in many years the choices did not reflect the best scifi/fantasy written that year and no one had a major objection to voting for the best nominated work although they may have thought it was nowhere near the best piece written that year.

[Lies And Perfidy]

a transgenderist

ha ha wow, fuck aaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way off, johnny

[Cubarey]

It seems that Baen as a whole has a massive chip on it's shoulder for not being sufficiently recognized in the Hugos recently. Which, maybe they even have a bit of a point, as a publisher that has brought a lot of good, but more or less abandoned/forgotten SF back into print, as well as having a lot of currently running popular SF series, etc. They probably merited more recognition - as a publisher.

Unfortunately for them, they just don't have any truly deserving new stand-alone books since Bujold went off her game, though. And, of course, the Puppies didn't even nominate Baen all that much in their slates, for some reason, but they are Baen authors and there is fertile ground for shared feeling of disgruntlement, etc.

And they likely did not nominate Baen all that much because they did not want the added accusation thrown at them that they were just Baen propogandists.

[mormont]

And they likely did not nominate Baen all that much because they did not want the added accusation thrown at them that they were just Baen propogandists.

In the context of the number of nominations for one particular small press, that seems highly unlikely. Why would they be perfectly happy to risk being called Castalia propagandists but not willing to risk being called Baen propagandists?