What’s It All About, Alfie?

August 27, 2015 at 1:19 pm

About those awards…

Let’s begin with another lesson in Hugo history. First stop, 1953. The first Hugo Awards were presented at the 11th worldcon, in Philadelphia. Robert Silverberg tells me that they were not even called “Hugos” back then, just “Science Fiction Achievement Awards.” Isaac Asimov was the Toastmaster. There were only seven categories that first year. Forry Ackerman was “# 1 Fan Personality,” Philip Jose Farmer was “Best New Author or Artist,” Willy Ley took one for “Excellence in Fact Articles,” Virgil Finlay was “Best Interior Illustrator,” Hannes Bok and Ed Emshwiller ‘tied’ for “Best Cover Artist,” ASTOUNDING and GALAXY ‘tied’ for “Best Professional Magazine,” and — drumroll, please — Alfred Bester won for Best Novel (the big one, then as now) with his soon-to-be-classic THE DEMOLISHED MAN.

Several things should be noted about the Philadelphia awards. First, they were widely regarded as a one-time thing; no one imagined at that time that they would become an annual event and the climax of worldcon. (And, indeed, no awards were given the following year, at the 1954 worldcon).

Also, there were no losers that year, only winners. No voting, no shortlist. These were all what we would call today ‘committee awards,’ the honorees chosen entirely by the members of the concom by some arcane process. The ‘ties’ did not result from an equal number of votes, therefore; it was just that the con runners felt both were worthy. Fannish legend tells us the first awards were made from Oldsmobile hood ornaments (but more on that later).

There has been much debate of late about the value of a Hugo. Whether or not it has actual monetary value, whether it can boost a writer’s career or lead to larger advances. Back in 1953, no one was thinking that way. Look at those first awards, and you can see what the rocket is all about. The Hugos are an “Attaboy! You did good.” They are SF thanking one of its own for enriching the genre, for giving them pleasure, for producing great work. Also, they come with a really cool trophy. Bottom line, that’s what matters.

After skipping 1954, the awards came back in 1955 at the Cleveland worldcon, and have been with us ever since. Clevention was well before my time, but my understanding is that this was the first time we had actual balloting for the winners. This may also been the first time the awards were called Hugos, though I have been unable to document that. The categories were slighly different from 1953, and have continued to evolve and change ever since.

Fast forward to 1976, and that first Hugo Loser Party in Kansas City. I have written, below, of how Gardner Dozois acted as a herald/ doorman at that bash, loudly announcing each guest who attempted to enter, and proclaiming them either a winner or a loser. Losers were cheered and welcomed, winners booed and pelted with peanuts, etc.

Which leads me to the moment when Alfred Bester himself appeared in the door. “ALFIE BESTER,” the great Gargoo roared at him. “You may not pass! You won the FIRST Hugo!!!” And the boos rose up like thunder. But Alfie was undeterred. “Yes,” he shouted back, “but it was an Oldsmobile hood ornament, and it’s all pitted and rusted and corroded now!” And the boos changed to cheers, and Alfie entered the party and proceeded to drink us all under the table, thereby establishing the principle that even legendary winners can become losers with sufficient time and corrosion.

Here’s a fiddling footnote, though. In the twenty-three years between the Philadelphia and KC worldcon, Alfie’s rocket almost certainly suffered pitting and rust. I have seen other Hugos from the 50s, and time has left its marks on all of them. But he was wrong as well; the ’53 rockets may have been inspired inspired by the Oldsmobile hood ornaments, but they were not actually made from same. Maryland fan Jack McKnight made those first awards himself in his machine shop, working all through the con and finishing just in time for the presentation. Which is not to say that the ‘hood ornament’ legend is entirely wrong. Just the date is off. It was the 1956 Hugos that are actually Oldsmobile hood ornaments. Dave Kyle made the awards that year. Kyle presumably lacked McKnight’s machine shop and metal-working skills, so he raided some junkyards for hood ornaments from the 1950 or 1951 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, and screwed them to an upright wooden stand. Take a look for yourself:

1950 Oldsmobile hood ornament

1953 Hugo

1956 Hugo

[[You can find all this history, and pictures of every Hugo since the beginnings of the award, at the official Hugo site at http://www.thehugoawards.org/ Go check it out, it’s cool]].

Fast forward again, this time to present.

This past year has been a tough one for all of fandom, and especially those of us who love SF, fantasy, worldcon, and the Hugos. Puppygate injected a note of discord and division and vitriol into the awards process unlike anything ever seen before in the long history of the awards. You all know the facts; I am not going to rehash them again here.

I have been a Hugo winner, and a Hugo loser, and a Hugo presenter, many times. I hated this year’s discord, and I could see how much damage it was doing. I felt I had to speak out about what was happening, and I did. I engaged in dialogue (relatively civil) with the Sad Puppy leaders Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia in hopes of somehow finding some common ground and effecting some sort of reconciliation; sadly, that effort failed. With the passage of months, things got worse instead of better.

In any Hugo season save the first, there are more losers than winners. Five nominees per category means one winner and four losers. Multiply that by the number of categories, and the losers way outnumber the winners. Always have, always will. And, yes, it IS an honor just to be nominated… but that does not soften the sting when the envelope is opened and someone else’s name is called out. I know, I’ve been there many times, and not just at the Hugo Awards (six time Emmy loser here, and I will be going for seven next month).

And this year, thanks to the slates, we had more losers than ever before. This year, indeed, we were all losers. Some lost the usual way, finishing behind an eventual winner. Others lost to No Award, an especially galling sort of defeat. (Which also created five losers in those five categories instead of four). Even the winners lost, since their victories will always bear as asterisk in the minds of some because they triumphed under such unusual circumstances, over a weakened field, or whatever. (I don’t necessarily endorse this viewpoint. I think some of this year’s winners deserve an exclamation point rather than an asterisk. But I have heard a fair amount of the asterisk talk even on Hugo night itself). The Hugos lost: five No Awards is an occasion for mourning, not cheers. The genre lost: I don’t buy that even bad press is good, and we sure got a lot of bad press this year. Fandom lost: division and discord poisoned our annual celebration of love for SF, and left wounds that will be a long time healing. The nominees who withdrew from the slates lost; they walked away from a Hugo nod, a painful thing to do, and were abused for that decision. The nominees who stayed on the ballot lost; they were abused for that decision too, and some, who were NOT Puppies and never asked to be slated, saw their Hugo chances destroyed by the Nuclear option. Some nominees managed to catch flak from both sides.

And there was another class of loser, less visible, but still very much a victim of the slates. Those writers who produced outstanding work in 2014, and who, in a normal year, would have almost certainly received Hugo nominations. Some might even have won rockets. But this was NOT a normal year, and the usual word-of-mouth buzz and fannish enthusiasm that generally carries a story to a place on the Hugo ballot could not and did not prevail against the slate-mongering of the Sad Puppies and the lockstep voting of the Rabids. These were the invisible losers of the 2015 Hugo season. Losing is a part of life, and certainly of the Hugos… but it is one thing to be beaten in a fair contest, and another to be shoved aside and denied the chance to compete.

It was for those ‘invisible losers’ that I decided to create the Alfies. If one accepts that the Hugo has value, these writers had suffered real harm thanks to the slates. There was no way I could hope to redress that… but I could make a gesture. In the door of my room in KC in 1976, Alfie Bester told us that winners can become losers. If so, losers can become winners too. I would give my own awards… and of course I’d name them after Alfie.

So that’s how the Alfies came about.

Next rock, I’ll tell you about their creation… and who won them.

Tags: alfies, hugo awards, worldcon

The Hugo Losers Party

August 26, 2015 at 4:28 pm

The first Hugo Loser Party was held in my room in the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, during Big Mac, the first KC worldcon, MidAmericon. In the years and decades since the party has become somewhat of a worldcon tradition, and it has always held right after the Hugo ceremony… but that first one was held the following day, on a Monday.

It was an impromptu thing. The night before, at the ceremony proper, I had lost two Hugos — one to Roger Zelazny (novella) and one to Larry Niven (novelette). The winners had been celebrating afterwards, making the rounds of the parties with their Hugos in hand (except for Niven, who had dropped and broken his while exiting the stage). I remarked to Gardner Dozois — who at the time proudly claimed the title of Bull Goose Loser, the fellow who had lost the most awards without ever winning one — that we losers needed a party too. He thought it was a great idea, and somehow it was decided to hold it in my room. Which, mind you, was not a suite, but just an ordinary double, though it did have the advantage of being at the end of a hall, right next to the door that led out onto the pool deck, which would prove to be a crucial advantage.

Being losers, we had no money for booze or refreshments, but Parris and some other friends took charge of that, making the rounds of all the Sunday night parties (publisher parties, bid parties, even the con suite) and scrounging their leftovers. We ended up with some jugs of Gallo, some box wine, a bathtub of assorted bheer (some generic), and some stale pretzels and cheese curls. There may have been peanuts too. At this stage, I forget.

In any case, it was a great party. A legendary party. One of those parties where everything comes together just perfectly to create magic. I got as drunk as I have ever been in my life, and ended up standing on a dresser, leading the crowds in chants of LOOOOOOOOOSE (a play on Bob Tucker’s famous SMOOOOOOTH, with jug wine passed from hand to hand instead of Beam’s Choice). Gardner stationed himself at the door, like a herald, and announced each new arrival and whether they were a loser, or one of those hated winners. Losers were greeted with cheers and applause. Winners were boooed mercilessly, and sometimes pelted with peanuts and cheetos until and unless they proclaimed themselves to be true losers, and explained why. When Joe Haldeman appeared, having just won the Best Novel Hugo the night before for THE FOREVER WAR, the fans seized him, lifted him off his feet, carried him outside, and flung him into the hotel pool. (Fandom was different in those days).

((Okay, okay, Joe did get thrown in the pool, but it did not happen quite the way I tell it. But my version is better. When truth becomes legend, print the legend)).

The party raged all through the night, until the sun came up over Kansas City. (Fandom was younger in those days). Everyone came, though some (the humorless and stuffy) did not stay. LOCUS later proclaimed it the best party at the con.

So of course we had to do it again the following year, at Suncon.

A bit more planning went into that second party. That one was held the same night as the Hugos, which would henceforth be the tradition. Gardner and I still ran it. Of course, we still had no money for booze or snacks, but this year, instead of scrounging, we hooked up with a publisher and borrowed their suite and refreshments. Ace was our co-host that year, I believe. A much tonier party than the first one, but still fun, if not quite as raucous as year one. It was counted a great success for Ace… and thereafter, publishers began to court Gardner and I for the right to host the party. Every year we had a different partner. Berkley, Pocket Books, Baen, Bluejay… each of them joined forces with us for one or more Hugo Losers Party.

In 1980, at Noreascon II, I committed the ultimate sin for a Hugo Loser by winning two Hugos. When I turned up at the party with them in hand, Gardner was waiting with a spray can of whipped cream. He nailed me instead the door, turning my head into a sundae. He even had a maraschino cherry to put on top. (Sadly, no one seems to have taken a picture). (I did get my revenge years later, when Gargy began winning Hugos every year).

That double win had endangered my status as a loser, Gardner warned me, but I returned to his good graces the next year at Denvention II, when I lost again, this time to Gordy Dickson. And I’d been so confident of winning that I’d even rented a tuxedo. You can see me in it up above in the icon. It was crushed red velvet, and the lovely Parris said it made me took like a singing waiter in an upscale Italian restaurant. Rusty Hevelin was Fan GOH at Denver, and the con had given him a huge suite, so that year we borrowed Rusty’s room for the party rather than partnering with a publisher. Denvention became another legendary party. That was the one where I presented Howard Waldrop with the fake F&SF cover. He was up for “The Ugly Chickens” and we all expected him to win, since he’d taken the Nebula earlier that year for the same story. But he lost too, also to Gordy Dickson, so his victory gift became a consolation prize. The party got so crowded that Rusty finally got on a table and shouted, “If you are not a Hugo loser, or do not KNOW a Hugo loser, please leave.” I don’t think many did.

That was 1981. I continued to run the party for a few more years after that, usually teaming with a publisher… but in 1985 I went out to Hollywood to work on TWILIGHT ZONE, and I no longer had the time or energy to organize worldcon parties. I don’t recall exactly how or when the torch was passed, but it was. The parties went on, but I was no longer the one doing them.
I believe it was sometime in the 1990s when the Hugo Losers Party somehow became a quasi–official worldcon function, and a tradition arose — don’t know how — of each of them being hosted and run by the following year’s worldcon.

Some very nice Hugo Loser Parties have been held under that arrangement, but over the years I could not fail to note that the party was drifting further and further away from its roots. Some years it was very fancy indeed, with champagne and chocolate Hugos and lavish buffets. Winners were allowed to attend, unmocked and unmolested. To avoid the crowding that had marked the party in Rusty’s suite, door dragons appeared, armed with lists of invited guests. If you weren’t on the list, you were turned away. Even GARDNER was turned away one year. Depending on the location, the lists got more and more restrictive. Once the party had been open to anyone who had ever lost a Hugo; now only those who had lost that year (or won that year) were allowed in. These quasi-official parties often closed down early, only a couple hours in. And, the ultimate outrage, finally even the name ‘Hugo Losers Party’ was jettisoned, since some of the humor-impaired and irony-deaf among us found it offensive. (No doubt the same crowd who forced Oscar presenters to say “And the Oscar goes to –” rather than “And the winner is –” ) Everyone still CALLED it to Hugo Losers Party, mind you, but officially it was now the “Post-Hugo Nominees Reception.”

The nadir was reached last year at Loncon, when Sasquan threw the most dismal party in history in a brightly-lit function room with nothing to eat, hardly anything to drink (the booze was gone before three quarters of the guests arrived), and the most officious door dragon in worldcon history, so intent on checking her lists that the queue stretched all the way down the hall, and people were giving up and going away rather than wait. I still managed to have fun there, mind you, but even though I had just won a Hugo for GAME OF THRONES, no one sprayed me with whipped cream, made me wear a funny hat, or spoke a mocking word to me.

That was when I first began to think that maybe it was time I took the party back.

That resolve solidified when the Puppy Wars broke out. I knew that KC folks would be throwing an official Post-Hugo Nominees Reception following the Sasquan Hugos, and I was certain it would be a LOT better than that farce in London (the KC fen know how to party)… but it seemed to me, after so many months of anger and division, something more was called for. The KC bash would be at a bookstore, would be restricted to this year’s losers (and winners), would be relatively sedate, and would doubtless end after a few hours. I wanted something old school. I wanted to go back to our roots. I wanted to have a blast, to howl at the moon and dance till dawn and mock the winners and console the losers, the way we used to.

So that’s what we did.

As it happens, I am not as poor as I was in 1976, so we did not need to scrounge for booze from other parties, and we could afford something nicer in the way of refreshments than peanuts and pretzels and cheezy poofs. Remembering the great crush of 1981, and being all too aware of the problems all cons are having with room parties of late, I decided against having the party in my suite and went off-site instead, to a swell Victorian house/ wedding venue called the Glover Mansion, a short cab ride from the hotel. The Glover was big enough to accomodate 250 guests, or maybe 300 if they really really liked each other and the fire marshall didn’t come calling.

So we rented the hall, had invites printed up, ordered up a great spread of hors d’oevres and cheeses and salads, engaged a local band, hired a limo to ferry the losers back and forth from the con hotels and the KC party, and had a huge custom cake baked, with crashing rockets and rogue moons and other cool SF decor. My faithful minions convinced me that we could not throw anyone into a pool or spray them with whipped cream in 2015, since we are all old now and wear expensive clothes, so instead we decided we would make the winners wear coneheads. That worked out pretty well, as WIRED documented in their account of the bash.

We did have a few bumps starting out, since the Hugo ceremony ran longer than expected, and many of our guests wanted to stop at the KC party before heading for ours (for the record, KC did a great job with their Post-Hugo Nominees Reception, and I wished I could have lingered there longer and had some of that great Kansas City bbq). But once we got going, we kicked ass. The food was terrific, the Glover was amazing — we had the whole place, with two bars, big rooms on the ground floor, smaller rooms upstairs with comfortable seats and old SF movies playing, extensive grounds and gardens — and our band, the Misfit Toys, rocked . No jug wine was on offer, but we had a special cocktail, the Demolished Fan, named in honor of Alfred Bester’s THE DEMOLISHED MAN, winner of the 1953 Hugo for Best Novel. People talked. People laughed. People pontificated on the state of the field and the future of our genre. People flirted. People danced. I don’t know that anyone actually had sex at the party, but I am hopeful that a lot of the guests had sex afterward. We mocked the winners and cheered the losers with our old tried-and-true Losers Party refrains: “You wuz robbed” and “Wait’ll next year” and “It’s a honor just to be nominated.” (Which it is actually).

WE HAD FUN. Which is what the Hugo Losers Party is all about. What cons are all about.

And if ever there was a year when merriment was needed, it was this year. This was the year when everyone lost, I fear.

Not all the losers were there, to be sure. I had a pocket full of invitations throughout the con, as did Parris and my minions Raya and Jo and Tyler, but even so, we missed people. I never saw Mike Glyer, who I was especially eager to invite, since he had attended the first Hugo Losers Party in 1976, and had done such a great job of covering Puppygate in File 770. But we did get Liza and the LOCUS crew, and it was Charlie Brown and LOCUS who named that first party the best at Big Mac. I looked for Toni Weisskopf at the Hugo ceremony, but never found her. I saw John Joseph Adams at the ceremony, but he somehow escaped me during the picture-taking afterward, and my efforts to track him down at the KC bash came to naught. I never found Jo Walton, though I got messages that she was looking for me. There were others I missed as well… and some who were not invited. NO ASSHOLES, the invite warned. We had a small list, and no, I won’t tell you the names on it… but we wanted this party to be about joy and celebration and togetherness, not division, anger, and ugliness.

In that we succeeded. We had a great crowd. Old and young, fan and pro, male and female, gay and straight and trans, losers and winners, editors and publishers and artists and writers, all dancing and laughing and drinking and having fun. It wasn’t as crowded as that party in Denver, no, but there were probably more people; the Glover is a lot bigger than Rusty’s suite was.

And yes, a number of the guests were on the Puppy slates, and yes, the losers included people who lost to No Award, which has to be an especially hard way to lose. Maybe the party helped in some small way. I have to say, if there is any hope at all of reconciliation with the Sad Puppies, it is much more likely to be accomplished with drinks and dancing than by exchanging angry emails over the web.

We didn’t quite dance till dawn… the bar had to close at two, by law, and the guests began to drift off after that… but it was past three when the Misfit Toys played their last song, and four by the time I made it back to the hotel. Maybe not 1976, but pretty good for 2015.

Oh, and there were awards. The Alfies. You may have heard rumors. But I’ll save those details for my next post.

(Thanks to the amazing crew at the Glover Mansion, and to the Misfit Toys. We could never have done this without you. And a special thanks to Raya Golden, ace minion, who did all the actual work of organizing this party).

Will I do it again next year, I hear you asking.

That would be telling.

Tags: hugo awards, worldcon

Hugo Aftermath

August 25, 2015 at 10:01 pm

We are back from Sasquan, where we saw friends, bought books, were wined and dined by editors and publishers, partied, breathed a lot of smoke (cough, cough), and attended the Hugo Awards.

By now most of you reading this will know what happened. The news has been all over the internet. You can pretty well tell how the evening went from the reactions. The Puppies are howling in outrage and anger, while simultaneously claiming it as a great victory and what they wanted all along. Fandom is mostly relieved. No, not a great Hugo night — how could it be, with so many No Awards — but not nearly as bad as some had feared either.

And my own reactions?

Mixed.

I did pretty well handicapping the awards. Missed a few, sure, but I got more right than wrong. Actually, my predictions were more on the nose than they have been for a decade or so. Maybe the slates and their opponents simplified things, in a weird way. Anyway…

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer was first up. It went to Wesley Chu, as I’d hoped, and as I predicted that was a harbinger for the rest of the night. Chu defeated four Puppy nominees, and his win was the start of a landslide. The Puppies lost and lost big; not just defeated, but routed, finishing behind No Award in almost all cases.

I totally whiffed on Best Fan Artist. I picked Brad Foster to win, and he finished last. But Laura Mixon won Best Fan Writer (YES!), a big win over both the Puppy nominees, the Moen faction, the Nuclear Option, and the allies and enablers of Requires Hate. It was a great moment for fandom, and Laura gave a moving and eloquent acceptance, best speech of the night.

I missed on Fancast, but hit on Fanzine (JOURNEY PLANET) and SemiProzine (LIGHTSPEED), both popular choices that the audience applauded loudly. Julie Dillon won Best Professional Artist. I’d called that one too. At this point I was 5-2 as a handicapper.

Then I hit a bump. Two bumps, in fact. Both editing categories went to No Award.

I had picked Mike Resnick in Short Form and Toni Weisskopf in Long Form, and indeed, each of them finished above all the other nominees in the first round of voting… but well behind No Award. This was a crushing defeat for the slates, and a big victory for the Puppy-Free ballot of Deirdre Moen. Honestly? I hated this. In my judgment the voters threw the babies out with bathwater in these two categories. Long Form had three nominees who are more than worthy of a Hugo (and one, Jim Minz, who will be in a few more years), and Short Form had some good candidates too. They were on the slates, yes, but some of them were put on there without their knowledge and consent. A victory by Resnick, Sowards, Gilbert, or Weisskopf would have done credit to the rocket, regardless of how they got on the ballot. (All four of these editors would almost certainly have been nominated anyway, even if there had been no slates).

((Some are saying that voting No Award over these editors was an insult to them. Maybe so, I can’t argue with that. But it should be added that there was a far far worse insult in putting them on the ballot with Vox Day, who was the fifth nominee in both categories. Even putting aside his bigotry and racism, Beale’s credential as an editor are laughable. Yet hundreds of Puppies chose to nominate him rather than, oh, Liz Gorinsky or Anne Lesley Groell or Beth Meacham (in Long Form) or Gardner Dozois or Ellen Datlow or John Joseph Adams (in Short Form). To pass over actual working editors of considerable accomplishment in order to nominate someone purely to ‘stick it to the SJWs’ strikes me as proof positive that the Rabid Puppies at least were more interested in saying ‘fuck you’ to fandom than in rewarding good work)).

I also misliked the roar of approval that went up at the announcement of the first No Award. I understand it, yes… fandom as a whole is heartily sick of the Puppies and delighted to see them brought low… but No Award is an occasion for sadness, not celebration, especially in THESE two categories. For what its worth, neither Parris nor I participated in the cheering. And the two No Awards dropped my score to 5 – 4.

Which brought us to my own category: Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. I was the designated acceptor for GAME OF THRONES, and I had some words from David Benioff and Dan Weiss in my pocket, but I didn’t think I would get to use them, and I didn’t. Even so, my call was wrong. I’d predicted “The Mountain and the Viper” would lose to DOCTOR WHO. Instead we lost to ORPHAN BLACK. The Doctor finished second. It is telling that the three shows that were on the slates — us, THE FLASH, and GRIMM — finished at the bottom, below the two the Puppies ignored. This was a clear defeat for the Pups, and another victory for Moen’s Puppy-Free ballot. Plainly a lot of voters ignored the shows on the slates. Nobody at HBO or GAME OF THRONES had any contact with the Puppies, mind you, and I am pretty certain the same was true of GRIMM and THE FLASH. By slating us, the Pups effectively destroyed our chances. I don’t mind… much. ORPHAN BLACK is a worthy win, an excellent show long overdue for some recognition, and GOT had won three years in a row. Even so, there’s a part of me that would have liked to have seen how GAME OF THRONES did against ORPHAN BLACK on a level playing field. Even chances we might have won a fourth, I say. But we’ll never know. The Pups poisoned the well.

Dramatic Presentation, Long Form went to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. The only candidate from the slates to win all evening. I called that one. If not for the slates, I think GUARDIANS might have won even bigger… Puppygate drove some voters to the unslated CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER, I think. But a win is a win is a win. I was 6-5 by this point.

Graphic Novel was next, though. Another miss for me. I had loved MS MARVEL (yay! a very fun read, a great new character for the Marvel universe), but I predicted SAGA for the victory, and MS. MARVEL took the rocket. Should have gone with my heart instead of my head. 6-6. Urk.

That was followed by two more No Awards, for Related Work and Short Story, both of which I called correctly. Related Work was the weakest category on the ballot, with two truly odious finalists. “The Hot Equations” was the strongest of the bunch, but not strong enough to cop a Hugo… not when people like Gilbert, Weisskopf, and Resnick had already been passed over. In Short Story, “Totaled” was probably the strongest slate nominee on the ballot, aside from Jim Butcher… but the tide was running strong by then, and it was swept under. Which brought me to 8-6 as a handicapper.

I had picked NO AWARD in Novelette as well, but I missed that one. Nobody ran a strong race, but in the end the Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt eked out a narrow win with “The World Turned Upside Down” and took the rocket. He was the only non-slate nominee in the three short fiction categories. Novella did go NO AWARD, which anyone could have predicted by this point.

I did not cheer for the No Awards in Related Work, Short Story, or Novella either, but those decisions did not disturb me as much as the votes in the editing categories. The people around me were not cheering either. The mood was somber rather than celebratory, at least at the front of the hall. Even David Gerrold said, “Let there be some winners, please,” as he clutched the last batch of envelopes. Voting in these categories was very much a painful choice. What was worse, No Award or giving our beloved rocket to an unworthy nominee? There’s no good answer.

The night did finish on an up note, however. The “big one,” Best Novel, went to THREE-BODY PROBLEM by Cixin Liu, accepted by his translator, Ken Liu. That was pleased me greatly, and not just because I’d called it. (Fwiw, I would have been pleased by a GOBLIN EMPEROR win as well, and a win by Anne Leckie or Jim Butcher would not have disturbed me unduly). It’s a strong book, an AMBITIOUS book, a worthy winner… and the first Hugo to go to China, which is cool. Let us put more “world” in worldcon, by all means.

All in all, I finished 9-7. And left the hall feeling pretty good. My worst fears — a Puppy sweep, or across the board wins by the Nuclear Option — did not come true. It wasn’t perfect. I would have liked to see a couple rockets handed out in editor, and I would have liked less cheering for No Award, but it was a night I could live with.

The vote totals, when we saw them, were overwhelming. Conclusive proof that Puppygate was never a war between the Puppies and the “SJWs,” as their narratives would have it. There were no SJWs, then or now. There were only the Puppies… and the rest of us, who weren’t Puppies, and did not like having their choices imposed on us.

Oh, and before I close this, a few final words. Ben Yalow won the Big Heart Award. VERY cool; Ben is a SMOF, one of the people (oft vilified by the Pups) who work behind the scenes to put on these cons we love so much. He has been giving tirelessly of himself for decades, and it was great to see him get some recognition.

And the ceremony itself was terrific. The dynamic duo of David Gerrold and Tananarive Due were a delight from start to finish. David had vowed to keep politics out of the awards, and make the ceremony fun for everyone, and he did just that… even when he was being upstaged by the Dalek. I would think that even the most rabid of Puppies would have to acknowledge that David was as fair as he was funny. When some booing broke out in the hall, he moved to quell it instantly… and, even more crucially, he insisted that the crowd hold its applause until after all the nominees in a category had been read… a real kindness in my estimation, saving some of the Puppies from real humiliation. You’re a good man, David Gerrold.

The bits by Connie Willis and Robert Silverberg were very funny as well. I used to say that they should let Willis and Silverbob present the rockets every year, and I still think that would be a good idea… but now I’d add Gerrold to the list as well.

That’s all for now.

Next rock, I will talk about my Hugo Losers Party, and the Alfies.

Tags: hugo awards, worldcon

Worldcon: Winning and Losing

August 14, 2015 at 5:08 pm

Drumroll, please. The end is nigh. The climax approaches. Come Tuesday, I will be flying off to Spokane for Sasquan, Bigfoot’s favorite worldcon. A week from Saturday, this year’s Hugo Awards will be handed out, and we can put an end to the Puppy Wars… the 2015 edition, at least. There will be winners, there will be losers. Some will celebrate, some will weep. The vote totals will be parsed to a fare-the-well, no doubt, and spin doctors will be out in force.

The Puppies are already spinning, in fact. If you visit the Puppy blogs, you’ll soon see that both the Sads and Rabids are busy constructing a nifty little narrative so they can claim victory no matter what happens. If nominees from the Puppy slates take home rockets, they won! If No Award prevails across the board, they won by destroying the Hugos. If non-slate finalists prevail, they won by “proving” something or other (since they keep changing their complaint, pretty much any result is guaranteed to prove something, if squinted at the right way).

All that is nonsense, of course. Like most Puppy claims have been from the start of this fiasco. Hypocrisy and delusion. Me and my friend Occam, we use a simpler razor. If the Puppies win, they win. If they lose, they lose. And No Award… well, that does make this a three-body problem rather than a simple binary one, but I will get to that later. So if the Hugo voters do indeed vote down the bulk of Puppy nominees, please stand up with me and blow a big loud raspberry at any Puppy who tries to claim that black is white, up is down, and losing is winning. It ain’t.

WILL the Puppies lose?

I don’t know. No one knows. Don’t believe any fool who tries to tell you otherwise.

We do know that 5950 Hugo ballots were cast this year, smashing all previous records. You can find the details here: http://www.thehugoawards.org/2015/08/2015-hugo-voting-participation-smashes-records/ Last year, in contrast, only 3587 valid ballots were received, though Loncon was the largest worldcon in history. There’s no doubt that the Puppygate controversy that has iamed the internet since the nominations were announced drove those numbers. Supporting Membership rocketed up to unprecedented levels.

But who are all these new members? Over at FILE 770, the feeling seems to be that most of them are fans rallying to the defense of the Hugos. If so, the Puppy finalists will not only lose, they could very well be crushed, with lots of them finishing behind No Award. But some of the Puppies seem equally convinced that the new members are Puppy supporters, joining up in droves to stick it to those vile [fill in Brad Torgersen’s offensive epithet of the week]. If that’s true, the Puppies could actually win some rockets. Hell, if this betokens a mass migration of Gamergaters, the Rabids might even sweep the awards.

Which narrative is true? Which is deluded? No one knows, and no one is going to know until David Gerrold and Tanarive Due start to rip open those envelopes a week from Saturday.

For those on the edge of their seat wondering how this will all turn out, here’s a hint: watch the Campbell Award.

Just as there are “swing states” and “swing counties” and “swing precincts” that act as predictors of the results of an election, this year’s voting for the John W. Campbell Award (Not A Hugo) for Best New Writer will give us a strong indication of who is likely to prevail in all the races to follow.

the first Campbell winner

The Campbell Award is traditionally the first major writing award of the evening, given before any of the actual Hugo Awards. It is usually preceded by the First Fandom Award and the Big Heart Award, and sometimes by the Seiuns, the “Japanese Hugo.” Some worldcons prefer to give the Seiuns at another time; I have no idea where Sasquan will come down on that. Most of the Puppies do not even know what First Fandom is, and I know damn well that none of them are going to win a Big Heart Award, now or ever, so we can be reasonably certain that those two awards will go as usual. Bringing us to the Campbell.

This year’s Best New Writer finalists include Wesley Chu and four Puppies. Jason Cordova, Kary English, and Eric S. Raymond were on both slates, Sad Puppies and Rabid. Rolf Nelson, the fourth Puppy, was on the Rabid slate, but not the Sad.

In any normal year, Wesley Chu would have to be considered the overwhelming favorite to win the tiara. The Campbell has a two-year window of eligibility, and this is Chu’s second and final year. He was a nominee last year as well, with the third-highest number of nominations, behind only the ultimate winner and a second-place finisher, neither of them eligible this year, so we know that a lot of fans already like his work. His body of work has only gotten stronger in the intervening year. And, honestly, bottom line, Chu is the best writer of this year’s five… and that IS what the Campbell is supposed to reward after all, the Best New Writer.

But will he win? Well, that’s in the hand of those 5950 voters.

If Wesley Chu takes the Campbell, as he should, I think we will be in for a fairly reasonable night in Spokane. There will be some winners from the slates, and some categories will go the No Award, but most of the rockets will actually go to deserving work. If Chu wins, I think the vast majority of the fans in the auditorium will be more happy than not by night’s end.

If No Award wins, however… if No Award takes the Campbell, it will represent a huge and ominous victory for the “nuclear option,” for the faction of fandom that wants to destroy the village in order to save it. A victory by No Award in this category will signify that the voters decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and will likely betoken a long ugly night ahead, with category after category going to No Award. Myself, I think this unlikely. I think the hardcore “vote No Award on everything” voters are a small (if noisy) minority. But I could be wrong. It could happen.

And what if one of the four Puppy finalists takes the tiara?

That would represent a victory for the Puppies, certainly. But even there, certain distinctions should be made. Rolf Nelson was a candidate of the Rabids, but not the Sads. A victory by Nelson would be a singular triumph for Teddy Beale and the most extreme elements of Puppydom… and could suggest even worse results ahead, up to and including VD actually winning one or both of the Editing Hugos for which he is nominated.

Kary English, on the other hand, represents a much more moderate side of Puppydom. Though initially put forward by both the Sad and Rabid slates, VD later dropped her and removed her from his suggested ballot entirely when English put up a couple of blog posts that distanced herself from the Puppy party line. English is also a Hugo nominee this year, for her story “Totalled.” She’s the strongest writer of the four Puppy finalists, and in any normal year would be Wesley Chu’s toughest competition. This year? She could well finish last, since some trufans will not forgive her for being part of the slates to begin with, and the Rabids will not forgive her for breaking ranks. Myself, I think English deserves better. While I don’t think she is as good as Chu at present, she is plainly a talented new writer, and not unworthy of a Campbell nod. I would prefer a Chu victory in this category… but I’d rather see English take the tiara than No Award.

Oh, and while we are crunching candidates here, Eric S. Raymond warrants a few words. A candidate of both the Sad and Rabid slates, Raymond was nominated as one of the field’s best new writers on the basis of a single published story, the thinnest resume in the entire history of the Campbell Award. Maybe if that story was the greatest short ever published in our genre, that would be warranted… but it’s not. Even Raymond himself expressed incredulity at his nomination. Given how little SF he has produced compared to Chu and the other finalists, one might think that Raymond would be the longest of long shots. Ah, but there’s another factor. However much a neophyte he may be as a writer of science fiction, Eric S. Raymond is a well-known figure is the gaming world. Should Raymond win the Campbell, despite his shaky credentials as a writer of fiction, it would suggest strongly that large numbers of gamers had purchased supporting membership to vote for him. (Whether those gamers were Gamergaters is another question entirely, and one that cannot be proved. So far as I know, Raymond has not been a part of the Gamergate controversy).

I have no idea who is going to win.

But once we know the winner, it will tell us a lot about how the rest of the night will go.

Watch the Campbell.

(Some thoughts on the other Hugo categories to follow, if I find the time)

Tags: hugo awards, puppygate, worldcon

One More Day

July 29, 2015 at 1:30 pm

Last day at home. Tomorrow Parris and I fly east for the wedding, and some time in NYC with my agents and editors, and the baseball game on Staten Island (Go Direwolves!).

Speaking of the last, I am told tickets are almost sold out, so if you want to come, snag some now. The first 2500 fans at the stadium will get Direwolf hats. The first 400 in line will be able to get an autograph. Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary will be there as well, with one of their “envoy” wolves, and there will be a fund-raising raffle for the player jerseys.

While I love travel, I hate getting ready to travel. The last day at home is always stressful. Too much to do.

I won’t be blogging much, or reading email, while on the road, so I expect this space will go silent for a week or so. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean the Puppies got me.

Oh, and to be sure, time is running short for that Hugo vote as well. Balloting closes on July 31. Once again, to vote get your PIN and go to:

http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/

Remember, he who hesitates is lost.

Oh, before I forget… for those of you still in New Mexico, be sure and swing by the Jean Cocteau Cinema on Monday, August 3 for one of our famous (infamous) author events. Wild Cards stalwart VICTOR MILAN (creator of Cap’n Trips) will be on hand to read and sign copies of DINOSAUR LORDS, the first volume of his new epic fantasy series.

Hey, knights riding dinosaurs, what could be cooler than that?

Come join Vic and the gang, grab your copy of DINOSAUR LORDS… another great TOR book… and make him sign some Wild Cards books as well. We’ll have those available at the JCC as well, already signed by me (and in some cases by other writers).

Tags: hugo awards, jean cocteau, signings, travels

Sasquan and Beyond

July 26, 2015 at 12:57 am

A couple posts down, I posted about worldcon and what it means to me, and why I am going to be going to Sasquan and throwing a big party there (someone needs to make a big futile, stupid gesture, and it might as well be me).

From talking and emailing with various friends and colleagues, however, I know that some of them will NOT be going to Spokane, mainly because the Hugo Wars have left a bad taste in their mouths. Others will attend, but not without trepidation. They wonder how much of the acrimony of Puppygate will spill over into the con itself… to the panels, the parties, the hallways. Will this worldcon be a celebration or a battleground? A family reunion or a family feud?

I wish I could answer that question, but no one really knows. I’m hoping for “celebration” and “family reunion,” and I think that’s the best bet… but we won’t know till the fat lady sings and the dead dogs howl.

There are a couple of questions that are key here.

Number one, how many Puppies are actually going to be coming to Spokane? Hundreds of people have bought Sasquan memberships in the last couple of months, presumably to vote on the awards and site selection, but the majority of those have been supporting memberships. Are any of the Puppies buying attending memberships?

I have no idea. We do know that none of the Puppy leaders will be in Spokane. Brad Torgersen is in the military, and on deployment. Larry Correia attended the Reno worldcon (and blogged about what a great time he had, though he changed his mind a few months ago and revised his trip report retroactively), but he has clearly stated a number of times that he finds Dragoncon and Gencon more congenial and does not plan to return to worldcon. And VD, we are told, cannot attend any worldcon held on US soil. (I do not know the truth of that, though it does appear true that Beale lives somewhere abroad).

Torgersen, Correia, and Beale are by no means the only Puppies, of course. What about the others? Wright, Kratman, Hoyt, Williamson, May, Paulk, the Tor Boycott guys? Any of them? If any of the slate nominees should win a Hugo, will they be there to accept? Sure, many of those on the slates will be there, folks like Mike Resnick and Toni Weisskopf and Jim Minz, but just as we must distinguish between the Sad Puppies and the Rabids, we need to distinguish between the actual Puppies and those they chose to nominate.

Will the Sad Puppies be sitting on panels, signing autographs in the dealer’s room, attending the parties? Hell, will they be throwing parties? (The Furries sometimes have room parties at worldcon, what about the Puppies?) Will any of the Rabids turn up, without their rabid leader?

The fannish fears about Sasquan becoming a battleground are going to prove baseless if no Puppies actually come to Spokane. Which is entirely possible. Way back in one of my first posts on Puppygate, I said that the Puppies want to decide who gets the Ditmars, but they don’t want to be Australians. That analogy still holds true; the Puppies want to decide who gets worldcon’s award, but they don’t seem to want to come to worldcon.

But maybe I am wrong.

If so, the second question arises. Assuming some Puppies do indeed come to Spokane — a lot, a few, just one — what will that do to the atmosphere of the con?

This of course is a two-sided question. Will the Puppies behave? How will the trufans behave toward them? Will people get along, agree to disagree, maintain some semblence of courtesy? Or will we have blood in the halls and the party suites?

Tor always throws a huge party at worldcon. Will the boycotters try to make their presence known there, or at the Tor table in the dealer’s room? Baen Books often has a party too. Is that going to be a Puppy stronghold, or will writers from across the spectrum be welcome? If there is a panel on Puppygate, will it turn into a bloodbath?

And then there the two biggest potential flashpoints. The Business Meeting, and the Hugo ceremony itself. The Business Meeting takes place AFTER the Hugos, and I suspect that much of what happens there will be determined by what happened the night before. But it could get very contentious. The Hugo Awards… David Gerrold has stated several times that he wants to make the ceremony fun and non-political. I commend him for that. But there is only so much that a presenter can do. There’s only one of him, and hundreds in the audience. David can set a tone, but he cannot control what will happen.

What happens at Sasquan, I believe, is going to be very important… because it will go a long way toward determining what happens after worldcon, next year and the year after and the year after that. “The culture war has come to science fiction,” some of the headlines about this kerfuffle have read. True enough, I fear. The question is, is the culture war here to stay, or can we make a peace? Will Puppygate fade and be forgotten after Sasquan, or will we need to fight the same battles next year?

The answer to that lies with the Sad Puppies. The Rabids? Forget it. Beale has vowed to destroy the Hugos, to burn them to the ground, and I have no doubt he will try… this year, next year, the year after. There’s no reconciliation possible there.

The Sads, though… as much as I have disagreed, and continue to disagree, with Correia and Torgersen, I have managed to have relatively civilized and courteous exchanges with them both, and I don’t think either intended what has happened. Beale wants to wreck the Hugos; Correia and Torgersen just seem to have wanted to get themselves and their friends nominated. I don’t like the way they went about it, but they are not the first to have that impulse. Neither one will be involved with Sad Puppies 4, we are told… and that’s good. I can only hope that their chosen successor will go about things differently… recommendations rather than a slate, discussions of the virtues of the writers they like rather than attacks on the writers they don’t like, an end to all the crap about SWJs and CHORFs, the endless name-calling.

I am old enough to remember 1974, when Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle published THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE and Samuel R. Delany published DHALGREN. Both major works by major writers, both bestsellers, both instantly recognized as classics… but in what may have been the last great battle of the Old Wave and New Wave, the fans who loved MOTE hated DHALGREN, and vice versa. (I loved them both myself, but I think I was almost alone in that). At every con I went to that year, fans and writers alike debated the virtues of those two important novels. The arguments were impassionated, endless, often heated, sometimes derisive… but underneath it all was always the sense that we are all still fans together, united by a common love for our genre.

It was not a culture war. It was a literary debate.

That’s what we need to return to, if we are ever to get beyond Puppygate.

Can we? I hope so. One of the things that gives me hope is — surprise — one of the Puppies, a writer named Kary English. She will be up for two awards on Hugo night. Both the Sad Puppies and the Rabids had her on their slate for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and she’s on the ballot there. And both slates also pushed her story “Totaled,” which is on the ballot for Best Short Story. English did not refuse the nominations or ask to be removed from the ballot, like Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet and (later) Edmund Schubert, for which sin some of those on “my side” of this fight will not forgive her. But she did later make two blog posts about Puppygate — you can read them here http://karyenglish.com/2015/06/dear-puppies-please-talk-about-what-you-love/ and here http://karyenglish.com/2015/06/an-open-letter-to-puppies-and-everyone/– calling for the Puppies to talk about the work and why they liked it (which none of them were doing, all the actual literary debate and reviews were coming from the other side) and then asking me to left out of any future Puppy slates. For that sin, she got on the Rabid shitlist too, and Beale dropped her from his slate.

I don’t know Kary English. (It is possible I have met her or been in the same room with her at some previous con, but if so I don’t remember. I meet a lot of people). Until Puppygate and her double nomination, I had never read any of her work. But I agree with much of what she had to say in those posts, and I applaud her for saying it, knowing (as surely she must have) that by breaking ranks with “her side,” aka the Puppies, she would face the wroth of some of those who had previously championed her. I know that there are some on “my side” who have slammed English despite these posts, insisting that she spoke up too late in the game, that she was trying “to have it both ways.” No, sorry, that’s idiocy. Like Kloos and Bellet and Schubert before her, she’s opting out of the kennel and the slates. I will not fault her for not doing so sooner. This thing has been hard for all concerned, and these choices are painful… especially for a young writer who has just received his or her first Hugo nomination.

If there is any hope for reconciliation post-Puppygate, it lies with voices of moderation and forgiveness on both sides, not with the extremists and the haters. It lies with Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet and Edmund Schubert. I hope they are all at worldcon. I would like to meet them, buy them a drink, shake their hands, and argue about books with them.

And Kary English too. The chances are good that, come Hugo night, she will be losing a Hugo Award and a Campbell Award both (maybe not, upsets happen, no one knows, I get surprised every year, but that’s my best guess). If so, I’ll have a Hugo Loser ribbon for her badge, and she’ll be welcome at my Hugo Loser Party.

Tags: hugo awards, puppygate, worldcon

Six Days Left

July 25, 2015 at 1:06 pm

Less than a week remains to cast a vote for this year’s Hugo Awards. Voting closes on July 31, but it would be wise not to wait until the last day. Sasquan has already warned that its servers may overload if there is too large a rush of last-minute ballots. Remember, you can vote NOW, even if you haven’t finished reading, and return later to change your ballot once you’ve read more.

The ballot is here: http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/

And of course, you need to be a member of worldcon (Supporting or Attending, either will do) and secure a PIN to be able to vote.

You can join here: https://sasquan.swoc.us/sasquan/reg.php

Membership also allows you to vote for site selection for the 2017 worldcon. There are four contenders: Japan, Montreal, Washington DC, and Helsinki.

Parris and I are supporters of the Helsinki bid. I was GOH at Finncon a few years ago, and at Archipelacon more recently, and the Finnish fans are wonderful. Also, I favor making worldcon truly a global affair, which means going outside the US from time to time. Finland has never had a worldcon. Montreal and Japan are also outside the US, of course, but both have hosted worldcons in the recent past. I missed the Japanese worldcon, but I understand that it is still massively in debt, so going back there so soon seems unwise. I did attend the Montreal worldcon, and it was one of the worst-run in recent memory, with a truly horrendous hotel and party situation. On the other hand, Washington DC has not had a worldcon since 1974, and the Washington bid is a very strong one, with a great concom and great facilities. They are probably the favorite this year, and in any other year I’d be backing them too. This year, though… it’s still Helsinki for us.

How you choose to vote is, of course, entirely up to you.

As for the Hugo Awards proper… I do not have the time or the space or the energy to share my own views on every story and book and writer on the ballot. This is by no means a normal Hugo year, however; Puppygate has plunged all fandom into war as never before. So I will recap a few of my own views from previous blog posts downstream.

I oppose the “nuclear option” of voting No Award down the board, to protest the hijacking of the ballot by the Sad and Rabid Puppies.

I favor reading the work, and voting for the stories, books, and writers you feel are worthy of a Hugo. Those you do NOT feel are worthy of the Hugo can and should be ranked below No Award or left off your ballot entirely.

This does not mean I am entirely opposed to voting No Award in all cases. Far from it. Having now finished most (not quite all) of my Hugo reading, I can say that I will probably be voting No Award myself in… hmmm… at least three categories, maybe four, maybe even five. These are categories where in my judgement none of the nominated work is worthy of a rocket.

But in those categories where I do find one or more nominees to be of sufficient quality, I will be voting for him or her or them, regardless of whether or not they were on a slate. And yes, this is true even if only one nominee is worthy. To throw out that one worthy nominee because they “had no real competition” (as some have suggested) seems wrong-headed to me. If it is worthy of a Hugo, give it a Hugo, that’s what I say.

Let me be specific here. Short Form Editor, Long Form Editor are all slate, but there are nominees in both who deserve a Hugo, and I’ll be voting for them. The Puppies liked a lot (though not all) of the nominees in the two Dramatic Presentation categories as well… but you know, so did I, so I’ll be voting for those as well. Sorry, but IMNSHO, only an idiot would want to “no award” GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY or INTERSTELLAR because the Puppies slated them. I am not going to tell you which movie or TV show or editor or novel I am voting for. I’ve mentioned some that I liked in older blog posts. Your mileage may vary; read, watch, consider, vote.

I will, however, make one exception there, one “endorsement,” if you will. I am voting for LAURA MIXON for Best Fan Writer, and I urge everyone reading this to do the same. (Hardly a surprise, I know, since I suggested that she be nominated in the first place). Having looked at the Hugo packet, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Laura is plainly the best writer of the five nominees… but there’s more to my choice than that. In this year of all years, with Puppygate turning so toxic and hatespeech spreading all over the internet, it behooves us more than ever to honor someone who spoke up AGAINST Hate and for healing, not by spewing vitriol in retaliation, but calmly, dispassionately, with clean hands and composure and… most of all… compassion. A victory for Mixon here would have huge symbolic value, I think; a vote for her is a vote for decency, and a vote against the trolls and haters of all stripes and persuasions, be they left-wing or right-wing or just loony.

Anyway…

FILE 770 reports that Sasquan membership has passed 10,000, and that more than 2900 Hugo ballots have already been cast. http://file770.com/?p=23985 The record was set last year at Loncon, when 3587 ballots were received. Given the Puppygate war, there’s a good chance that Sasquan will break that record, since it seems memberships are still pouring in.

Six days left.

Let your voice be heard.

Tags: conventions, hugo awards, puppygate, worldcon

Speaking of Awards…

July 17, 2015 at 2:08 pm

The clock is ticking. Only two weeks remain to cast a ballot for this year’s Hugo Awards, in what is proving to be the most controversial and hotly contested Hugo race in the award’s long history. The Hugo, as regular readers of this Not A Blog know, is our field’s oldest and most prestigious award. Named in honor of Hugo Gernsbach, the founder of the first SF magazine Amazing Stories, it has been given annually at every worldcon since 1953 (well, except for 1954). And this year, as never before, the voice and vote of every true fan is needed to help protect the integrity of the rocket. <img src=”http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/import/260706_300.jpg” alt=”” title=””><img src=”http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/import/261190_300.jpg” alt=”” title=””> You need to be a member of Sasquan, this year’s worldcon, to vote on the Hugos… but even if you are unable to attend, Supporting Memberships are available that will allow you to vote. If you have not voted the Hugo Awards before, please note that it is an “Australian ballot,” a preferential system whereby one ranks the nominees. You don’t just vote for one. You can rank NO AWARD as if it were any other finalist; ahead of some nominees, behind others. You can sign up to buy one at https://sasquan.swoc.us/sasquan/reg.php In addition to voting privileges, a Supporting Membership will get you the convention’s program book (usually a handsome item, though it varies from year to year) and other publications. The ballot is here: <a href=”http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/”>http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/</a> <img src=”http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/import/261628_300.jpg” alt=”” title=””><img src=”http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/import/261735_300.jpg” alt=”” title=””> You can also sign up as an ATTENDING member and actually attend the convention, which is the course I strongly recommend for those who have the time and the money. Cons are fun, especially worldcon; that’s what they are all about. Reading, panel discussions, the art show, the dealers’ room, the masquerade, filksinging… all sorts of great stuff goes on. Something for all tastes. And EVERYONE is welcome, despite what you have heard. (Just don’t be an asshole. Assholes get welcomed too, but the welcome wears out more quickly). Both supporting and attending members get an electronic “Hugo packet” that will enable you to read many of the works nominated for this year’s rockets. FILE 770, which has been doing an exemplary job of reporting on Puppygate, reports that Sasquan memberships continue to climb, and that more than 2300 Hugo ballots have already come in: http://file770.com/?p=23818 Who are all these new Supporting Members? Are they trufans rallying to the defense of one of our field’s oldest and most cherished institutions? Are they Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, Happy Kittens, Gamergaters? Are those dreaded SJWs and ASPs and CHORFs turning out by the hundreds and the thousands? Are these the Neo-Nazis and right-wing reactionaries we have been warned of? The truth is… no one knows. We may get a clue when the ballots are opened and counted, but even then, the numbers may well just say, “Answer cloudy, ask again.” <img src=”http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/import/261906_900.jpg” alt=”” title=””> All I know for sure is that every vote will count. Once again, balloting closes at midnight on July 31. And it would be best not to wait until the last day to vote, since there is a very real danger that Sasquan’s servers could be overloaded. Even if you haven’t finished all the reading — and I do urge everyone to read the nominees — you can cast a partial ballot today, and go back and revise, add, delete, and change as many times as you want between now and July 31. No votes will be counted until the deadline. Let this be fandom’s finest hour. Vote.

Tags: hugo awards, puppygate, worldcon

Reading, Reading, Reading

July 14, 2015 at 1:11 pm

I have been doing a lot of travelling of late — Germany, Sweden, Finland, Chicago — and that means I have been doing a lot of reading as well. When I travel, I read. Always have, always will. There’s no better way to fill the endless hours on the plane, and the strange hours in the middle of the night when the world is sleeping but you’re awake, thanks to jetlag. A few words about some of the things I’ve read are in order, therefore. I read the new Eric Larson bestseller, DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF LUSITANIA. Larson is a journalist who writes non-fiction books that read like novels, real page-turners. This one is no exception. I had known a lot about the Titanic but little about the Lusitania. This filled in those gaps. Larson’s masterpiece remains THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, but this one is pretty damned good too. Thoroughly engrossing. I read an ARC of the long-awaited new novel from Ernie Cline of READY PLAYER ONE fame. ARMADA, like READY PLAYER ONE, is a paean to the videogames of a bygone era, and like READY PLAYER ONE it is a tremendous amount of fun for anyone who remembers that time and played those games. (Those who did not may find it incomprehensible, admittedly). Those of you who liked the old movie THE LAST STARFIGHTER will really like this one. Hugely entertaining… though it does make me wonder if we’ll ever see Ernie write something that isn’t about videogames. He’s a talented guy, and I am sure that anything he writes would be terrific. I read the mega-bestseller THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, by Paula Hawkins, a mystery/ thriller/ novel of character about three women who live near the train tracks of a London commuter lines, and how their lives and loves get entwined when one of them disappears under mysterious circumstances. Fans of Gillian Flynn’s books will probably like this one too. I know I did… though I don’t think Hawkins is quite as deft a writer as Flynn. The first person voices of the three narrators sounded too much alike, I thought, but that’s a minor quibble. The main narrator, an alcoholic who is slowly falling apart, is especially well drawn. It’s a strong story, with a great sense of time and place, and one that had me from start to finish. I read ANGLES OF ATTACK, by Marko Kloos, military SF, third book in his series, and the immediate sequel to LINES OF DEPARTURE, the novel that was (briefly) a Hugo finalist thanks to the Puppies before its author withdrew it as an act of conscience. I’d read LINES OF DEPARTURE as a result of that, my first exposure to Kloos. I liked that one well enough, but didn’t love it. ANGLES OF ATTACK is, I think, better. I’m still the wrong audience for this — my list of “great military SF novels” includes STARSHIP TROOPERS, BILL THE GALACTIC HERO, THE FOREVER WAR, and an oldie called WE ALL DIED AT BREAKAWAY STATION, but not much else — but these are very entertaining books. Since I know there are a lot of fans of military SF out there, I’d say that ANGLES OF ATTACK might actually have an outside chance at earning a genuine Hugo nod solely on its merits… assuming the Puppies don’t slate it again. In any case, Kloos is a writer to watch. (I do hope this series isn’t going on for twenty more books, however. I want to know more about his gigantic and enigmatic aliens, and I want a resolution). Oh, and I also read a lot more of this year’s Hugo nominees. The stories and books that were NOT withdrawn. Hoo boy. More on that later. Suffice it to say that I was very glad that I had the books listed above to hand, to cleanse my palate after sampling some of the Hugo stuff.

Tags: hugo awards, puppygate, reading, reviews

Hugo Voting Continues

June 13, 2015 at 7:06 pm

With the Puppy Wars heating up again — not that they have ever really cooled down — this seems an opportune moment to remind all and sundry that there is still plenty of time left to join Sasquan and cast your ballot for this year’s Hugo awards.

With the electronic ballot, once you have a membership number and a PIN, you can go and post some preferences and votes now, then return a day later, or a week later, or a month later, and change them, or add some more rankings. Your vote does not get counted until balloting closes.

The ballot is here: http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/

If you have not voted the Hugo Awards before, please note that it is an “Australian ballot,” a preferential system whereby one ranks the nominees. You don’t just vote for one. You can rank NO AWARD as if it were any other finalist; ahead of some nominees, behind others.

(Which is the way I believe one should use NO AWARD. As I have stated previously, I am opposed to the nuclear option of just blindly voting NO AWARD in every category).

Of course, you need to be a member to vote. Supporting Memberships will cost you $40. You can sign up to buy one at https://sasquan.swoc.us/sasquan/reg.php

In addition to voting privileges, a Supporting Membership will get you the convention’s program book (usually a handsome item, though it varies from year to year) and other publications.

You can also sign up as an ATTENDING member and actually attend the convention, which is the course I strongly recommend for those who have the time and the money. Cons are fun, especially worldcon; that’s what they are all about. Reading, panel discussions, the art show, the dealers’ room, the masquerade, filksinging… all sorts of great stuff goes on. Something for all tastes. And EVERYONE is welcome, despite what you have heard. (Just don’t be an asshole. Assholes get welcomed too, but the welcome wears out more quickly).

Both supporting and attending members get an electronic “Hugo packet” that will enable you to read many of the works nominated for this year’s rockets. You should do that, no matter what side of the Puppy Wars you are on; we want informed voters. Yes, sadly, IMNSHO this is the weakest Hugo ballot in recent memory, thanks to the Puppy slates… but there’s still some damn strong work there, especially in Novel and Dramatic Presentation. And of course it is possible that your own tastes may differ from mine.

So join, read, vote. And fifty years from now, when your fannish grandchildren ask you, “Say, gramps, what did you do in the Great Hugo War?” you’ll have an answer for them.

Tags: fandom, hugo awards, politics, worldcon

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Reading, Reading, Reading

Hugo Voting Continues

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