Puppygate is the gift that keeps on giving… or taking away, in this case. Just when you think you’re out, they drag you back in.

Anyway, the battles continue to rage, all over the internet.

Connie Willis has issued a statement. If there is anyone worth listening to about the Hugo Awards, it is Connie. She has won more of them than anyone else. She has presented lots of them too. Her presentations are always hilarious, if excruciating for the poor sods who have been nominated. She is the funniest woman in science fiction. You would think that Connie might be someone that both sides in this fight would listen to with respect, since (1) her politics are liberal, (2) she is religious, a practicing Christian who attends church regularly and sings in the choir. So here is what she has to say:

http://azsf.net/cwblog/?p=116

David Gerrold has also weighed in on the debate. David, of course, is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter, who first broke into the field on Gene Roddenberry’s original STAR TREK, for which he penned “The Trouble With Tribbles.” He also played a crucial role in the creation of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, and won all sorts of awards for his short story, “The Martian Child.” And of course, David Gerrold is also the Professional Guest of Honor at Sasquan, this year’s Worldcon. Here are some of his thoughts:

https://www.facebook.com/david.gerrold/posts/10205360779551319?pnref=story

Some of you will want to comment on what David and Connie had to say. Some of you, needless to say, will want to disagree. That’s fine, but once again, I expect a respectful tone, no personal attacks, no insults. Don’t go there, or your posts will be deleted. Also don’t send me long screeds about how you mislike my calls for civility. If you want to spit and fume and denounce, hey, there are plenty of other blogs on the internet where you can do that.

Connie and David are both friends of mine. I have known David since the early 70s, Connie since the late 70s. Connie, actually, is a very good friend of mine. (Don’t be fooled if you have seen us ripping on one another at cons. That’s the George and Connie show. It’s a bit, like Jack Benny being cheap. We have fun with it. I love Connie, and I think she likes me okay too. She does have more Hugos than I do, which is very annoying and has given her a big head, but I love her anyway, and besides, the one time we went head-to-head for a rocket, I won).

That being said, do please note: I am not Connie Willis. I am not David Gerrold. Their thoughts are their thoughts, and my thoughts… well, I have posted my thoughts at great length here, you guys should know them by now. I agree with much of what Connie and David are saying, but not every word by any means.

I am going to have some further thoughts of my own in the post that follows.

For all of you who are sick of Puppygate… I am too, but there’s still a few more things that I need to say. Another day, maybe, and I will move on to happier topics.

Yes, I know about Larry Correia’s response to my earlier posts and I will reply to him here… but not just now. There’s another topic I need to cover first, one that I have been leading up to all along — what the hell do we do now?

Whether you think what the Sad Puppies did is right or wrong, it’s done. The ballot is out. It is what it is. So the ball is in our court now. What to do?

(Here is where I will probably piss off everybody on the anti-slate of this mess. Sorry).

Over at Making Light, and on several other sites, various rules changes are being proposed to prevent this from happening ever again. There are so many different proposals they make my head spin. More nominating slots, less nominating slots, weighted voting, eliminating the supporting memberships, outlawing slates, limiting nominees to a single nomination, juried nominations… on and on and on. The worldcon business meeting is never exactly a funfest, but if the proponents of half these proposals show up at Sasquan, this year’s will be a nightmare. And will probably still be going on when MidAmericon II convenes.

I am against all these proposals. If indeed I am at Spokane, and if I can get myself up in time for the business meeting, I will vote against every one of them.

Most of them, frankly, suck. And the mere fact that so many people are discussing them makes me think that the Puppies won. They started this whole thing by saying the Hugo Awards were rigged to exclude them. That is completely untrue, as I believe I demonstrated conclusively in my last post. So what is happening now? The people on MY SIDE, the trufans and SMOFs and good guys, are having an endless circle jerk trying to come up with a foolproof way to RIG THE HUGOS AND EXCLUDE THEM. God DAMN, people. You are proving them right.

I hate what the Puppies did. It was based on false premises, and though it was not illegal, it was mean-spirited and unsportsmanlike. So how about we do NOT prove them right by rigging the rules against Sad Puppies 4? How about we try to be better than that? There is nothing wrong with the Hugo rules. If we want to defeat the Puppies, all we need to do is outvote them. Get in our own nominations. This year, the Puppies emptied the kennels and got out their vote, and we didn’t. Fandom danced the usual, “oh, too busy to nominate, I will just vote on the final ballot,” and for that complacency, we got blindsided. We lost. They kicked our fannish asses, and now we have the ballot they gave us. If we don’t want that to happen again, we need to get out our OWN vote.

But let’s not give in to our worst impulses. I do not want to disenfranchise anyone. (Well, okay, maybe a few, rabies is dangerous). The fandom I joined in 1971, the fandom I love, is open and friendly and welcoming, and has room for every shade of political opinion and literary taste. Those are values worth defending, a culture worth fighting for.

Oh, and there’s another (lesser, admittedly) reason not to change the Hugo rules. The Nebulas. I have been a SFWA member since 1972, and I swear, the organization spends half its time arguing about the Nebula rules, year after year, decade after decade. I have seen a dozen “reforms” in my tenure, all in the interests of making the voting “more fair,” but no matter what rules we adopt, a couple years later the bitching starts and members start demanding we change them again. It’s endless. We do NOT want to open that Pandora’s Box at worldcon. Change the rules to deal with the Sad Puppies, and a year or two from now we’ll be changing again. Aside from adding the occasional category, or splitting one, the Hugo Awards have operated more or less the same way for decades, and that stability is part of their prestige. Let’s not mess with that.

Which brings me to another proposed countermeasure: the No Award strategy.

This comes in two flavors. The hardliners propose we vote NO AWARD for everything. Every category, even the ones where the Puppies have no nominees. No Hugo Awards at Sasquan, whatsoever. We’ll show them. Rather than letting them move into our house, we will burn it to the ground. “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” It worked so well in Vietnam.
All I’ve got to say about this idea is, are you fucking crazy?

The other approach is less radical. Vote NO AWARD in all the categories that are All Puppy. In the others, chose between the nominees (there are a few) that did not appear on either the Sad Puppy or Rabid Puppy slate, and place all the rest, the SP/RP candidates, under No Award.

That’s less insane than the “No Award For Everything” idea, but only a little bit. Sorry, I will not sign on for this one either. For a whole bunch of reasons. For starts, the Puppies are already proclaiming that “No Award” equals victory for them (though sometimes it seems as though they believe anything that happens constitutes victory for them). Also, near as I can tell from reading the blogs, it appears that some of the Sad Puppy candidates never consented to joining their slate, and that none of the Rabid Puppies were ever asked if they wanted to be included (I am ninety per cent certain that none of the films or TV shows in the two Dramatic Presentations category were ever contacted). There are also a whole bunch of people — all the editors except Vox Day, for starts — who may or may not have been contacted. No one has said, no one talking about it, we just don’t know.

Also… really, when you come down to it, this whole “were they contacted?” thing is a false issue. Torgensen says he contacted almost everyone, but missed a few. Some of his slate say no, they never heard from him… but does it really matter? I have been trying my damndest to get Alan Lee and John Howe nominated for Best Artist for years, and I never asked if I could. This year I wrote a long post about the brilliance of STATION ELEVEN and why it should be nominated in Best Novel, and I never contacted Emily St. John Mandel to ask if I could. I will not condemn Brad Torgensen for failing to do what I never do myself.

I do not believe in Guilt by Association, and that’s what we’d be doing if we vote against every name on the Puppy slates simply because they are on the slate. That was a classic weapon of the McCarthy Era: first you blacklist the communists, then you blacklist the people who defend the communists and the companies that hire them, then you blacklist the people who defend the people on the blacklist, and on and on, in ever widening circles. No. I won’t be part of that.

I have looked over the ballot, but I have not read all of it. Will I read all of it? Well, not every word…. but I will at least glance at every nomination. I know, from past experience, that there are some very talented writers on the list. There are also some very bad writers, and at least one whose picture probably appears next to MEDIOCRE in Websters. There are a lot of writers I have never read before, whose work I need to sample. Torgensen has claimed that the Sad Puppies slate is diverse, and a cursory glance at the names suggests he is not wrong.

I intend to consider every story and every finalist in every category, and vote for those that I think worthy of Hugos. I will vote NO AWARD, I promise you, but only where No Award is warranted. (Truth be told, I vote No Award every year in almost every category. Usually not in first, admittedly… but I don’t just look at a category and rank them one to five in order of preference, I rank the ones I think rocket-worthy above No Award, and the ones I don’t below).

This ballot is the worst I have ever seen, admittedly, and there are stories and writers on it who are not fit to polish a Hugo, much less win one. But there’s good stuff as well, and talented writers whose work I have enjoyed, and I am not going to vote against them just because the Sad Puppies like them too.

As I get further into my reading, I will let you know my thoughts on what I’ve read. But that may be a long process, so be patient.

Honestly, I don’t think any of the choices we have now are good ones. All roads seem to lead to perdition, but each of us will need to walk the one we think best. Meanwhile, I urge everyone who is reading this to go to the Sasquan website and join the convention. Attend if you can; if not, join as a Supporting member, just as the Puppies did. It is too late to nominate, but not too late to vote. The Puppies will be getting out their vote, you can be sure. We need to do the same, unless we care to see some poor guy hand Vox Day a rocket.

I wish I was more optimistic about how all this is going to turn out.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

(That’s Yeats, not me. Just to be clear).

Now we get to the crux of the matter.

So… what is behind Puppygate? What is it the Sad Puppies want? They have been doing this for three years now, three separate campaigns, with a fourth threatened… and presumably a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh if this goes on. That’s a lot of effort, a lot of hours, a lot of commitment. To what end? What’s their grievance?

I’ve read Brad Torgensen’s statements on this point, and I’ve read Correia’s MONSTER HUNTER NATION, and I’ve read hundreds of comments from their supporters. As with any large group, there is a wide range of opinion. Some of the Puppies are relatively moderate and reasonable. Others, I fear, are beyond the pale, raging and ranting about SJWs and cliques and secret conspiracies.

Digesting all of this, and trying to filter out the rabid extremists who seem mostly just to want to hurt liberals and feminists and gays, the essence of the Puppy complaint seems to be that the Hugo Awards have been taken over by the left, by their “Social Justice Warriors,” and these “CHORFs” (another offensive made-up term, like SJWs) have rigged the awards somehow so that only members of their own leftish “clique” or those writer who are willing to “kiss their ass” win, while other books and stories are ignored or excluded, and other writers are “blacklisted.”

Breaking down the complaints further, this purported exclusion seems to take several different forms, which vary according to which Puppy is speaking:
(1) some say the exclusion is political in nature, that conservative and libertarian writers are being unfairly shut out,
(2) others charge religious discrimination, insisting the Christian writers and “writers of Faith” are the ones being excluded,
(3) there’s a racial component in some comments (not from the Puppy leaders, but from their followers), wherein we are told that “straight white men” are the victims here,
(4) and finally, there’s the literary argument, wherein we are told that the ballots are full of bad boring crappy stories that no one really likes, placed there in some nefarious manner by the secret SJW cliques, whereas good old-fashioned SF and fantasy, the stuff the readers really love, is shut out and ignored.

Do I have the essence of it, Puppies and Puppylovers? I am leaving out any of the charges? Is this the source of all the anger, of this “revolt,” of this determination to “take back SF?”

Because if it is… well, someone has sold you a bill of goods.

Let’s look at the facts, shall we? I accept and acknowledge that some of the Puppies may feel excluded, disrespected, shunned… but feelings and facts are two different things.

Number (3) is the easiest to disprove. Straight white men are being excluded. Really? Really? C’mon, guys. Go look at the last five, ten years of Hugo ballots. Count how many men were nominated. Count how many women. Now count the black writers and the Asian writers and the foreign-language writers. Yes, yes, things are changing. We have a lot more women and minorities being nominated than we did in 1957, say, or even 1987… but the ballots are still way more white and way more male than not. Look, I am hardly going to be in favor of excluding straight white men, being one myself (and no, I am not a fan of Tempest Bradford’s challenge). I am in favor of diversity, of inclusion, of bringing writers from many different backgrounds and cultures into the field. I don’t want straight white writers excluded from the ballot… I just don’t think they need to have ALL of it. I mean, we’re SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY FANS, we love to read about aliens and vampires and elves, are we really going to freak out about Asians and Native Americans?

Let’s put that one aside, and look at the other three allegations. Are the Hugos biased against conservative writers, religious writers, or writers of the “good old stuff,” military SF, planetary adventures, space opera, sword & sorcery, hard science, and the like?

The Puppies say yes. I say no. The facts agree with me.

This chart is couple of years old, and therefore outdated a bit, but it still provides a very valuable overview of the history of the awards, who has won them, who has been nominated. So here are the records, albeit a few years out of date:

http://www.sfadb.com/Hugo_Awards_Tallies

(Before we get into the listings, let me repeat once again my contention that IT IS AN HONOR TO BE NOMINATED. Sure, it’s a bigger honor to win. But being on the shortlist is nothing to sneeze at, and I say that as the co-founder of the Hugo Losers Club).

What do we see on that list? Well, for a start, it is much easier to rack up lots and lots of nominations in the categories where one votes for a person rather than a work (Best Artist, Best Editor, Best Fan Writer). British humorist Dave Langford leads everyone with 55 nominations and 29 wins. Mike Glyer of FILE 770 is close behind with 52 nominations but only 9 wins. Then comes the late Charles N. Brown, editor and publisher of LOCUS, and Tor/ Signet/ Timescape/ Berkley editor David G. Hartwell, and Mike Resnick, and then Stan Schmidt, editor of ANALOG.

Some of these perennial nominees are liberal politically, I suspect, but none of those could be said to push a political agenda, or wear their politics on their sleeves. No SJWs here. On the other hand, Stan Schmidt edited ANALOG for longer than John W. Campbell did, and during all those decades it was the most conservative magazine in the field, the hard science mag, the choice of engineers everywhere, where the flag of Campbellian SF flew high. Now it is true, Stan never won, not until the year he retired. But he was nominated thirty-five times. Is that your definition of exclusion? Resnick… a very prolific writer, and by this list, the guy with the most nominations ever for fiction, rather than fanac or editing. Resnick, as I am sure the Puppies know, was at the center of the SFWA BULLETIN flap and lost the column that he and Barry Malzberg had written for decades… which hardly makes him a poster boy for the left. David Hartwell… well, Dave works for Tor, which some of the more extreme Puppies may count against him, but he’s also worked for many other publishers, and he’s edited many many writers from both right and left. I seem to recall it was Hartwell who first discovered John Wright, this year’s six-time Puppy favorite nominee.

So far I see moderates, conservatives, Campbellians, and the apolitical. I see no SJWs.

How about total number of WINS? Well, once again you’ve got Langford, the fannish humorist and wit, publisher of ANSIBLE, at 29, tied with Charlie Brown of LOCUS. Charlie was champion of a more ambitious, literary style of SF, but he loved the classic old stuff too. A Vance fan, a Heinlein fan. Gardner Dozois and Michael Whelan each had 15 when this list came out. Gargy’s an editor, a very important and influential editor, and yes, he’s a liberal… but once again, he also loves a good story. He’s edited space opera anthologies (THE GOOD OLD STUFF and THE GOOD NEW STUFF) and with me, OLD MARS and OLD VENUS, retro-SF that PLANET STORIES would have loved. Whelan’s an artist. A brilliant one. And next down… CONNIE WILLIS. It says here she’s won 11 times, but I think she’s won a few more since. Connie’s a woman, yes, and she’s liberal politically (though far from radical). She’s also religious. She has been singing in her Church choir for decades, she attends church regularly. Of course, she’s Episcopalian, so I am not sure that “counts” for some of the Puppies, who only seem to grant that a writer is religious if he or she shares their own religion.

Going further down the all-time list… there’s Richard E. Geis (politically hard right, sexually and socially left) with 34 nominations, Robert Silverberg (conservative) with 28. Further down, past some fans and artists, there’s liberal old me with 19 nominations (15 losses and 4 wins when this list was drawn up), tied with conservative Larry Niven.

One huge name not on the list: Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein did not rack up a lot of noms, since most of his short work was done before the Hugos were created. But he won Best Novel (the Big One) FOUR TIMES, a record that stands to this day (Lois McMaster Bujold tied him, but no one has yet exceeded him). RAH is not easy to characterize politically… he started out as a New Deal Democrat, even ran for office on the EPIC ticket, later became Republican and conservative on many issues… but socially was extremely progressive in his youth, and retained many liberal and libertarian opinions on sexuality and religious matter right up to his death in 1988.

If you’re looking for SJWs on this list, well… there’s Harlan Ellison and Ursula K. Le Guin. Harlan was certainly a firebrand, and Ursula was the field’s most eloquent and respected feminist for decades. They are also two of the greatest talents that SF has ever produced. Both SFWA Grandmasters, both firmly ensconsced in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, beloved of generations of readers. It would be hard to argue that either was created by a “clique.”

Oh, oh, okay, I can hear the Sad Puppies barking out their objections. “We never said the Hugo Awards were ALWAYS dominated by a leftist clique,” they are barking. “We only said that the SJWs took them over recently, and ruined them. That’s when all the good books and all the writers we like got excluded.”

Okay, fine. Fair enough. Let’s narrow our focus, then, and look only at the recent past, at the ballots that somehow triggered Puppygate. No rhetoric, just facts.

We know about this year’s ballot, the Sasquan ballot. Puppies puppies everywhere, thanks to Sad Puppies 3 and the Rabid Puppies. Last year, the Loncon ballot… well, that was the year of Sad Puppies 2, and that campaign, if not quite the sweep, did put Vox Day and Larry Correia and several other Puppy faves on the shortlist, so we’ll pass over that one too. To see how powerful the liberal SJW cliques truly were, we need to go back to a time before Correia and Day and their followers rose up to smite them.

Let’s look at 2012. LoneStarCon 3, San Antonio, in that notoriously liberal state of Texas. 1343 nominating ballots were received. 1848 final ballots chose the winners.

The Big One, Best Novel, went to John Scalzi for REDSHIRTS. He won out over 2312 by Kim Stanly Robinson, THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON by Saladin Ahmed, BLACKOUT by Mira Grant, and CAPTAIN’S VORPATIL’S ALLIANCE by Lois McMaster Bujold. Three men, three women. Two white men, one Arab-American. Do the Puppies object to these nominees? Is this the clique slate? Hard to see why. One Tor book, one from DAW, one from Baen, two from Orbit; no publisher had a stranglehold here, certainly. Scalzi — look, I know Scalzi is liberal, and I know that the Puppies seem to hate him, though I can’t for the life of me understand why — but whatever you think of the writer’s politics, REDSHIRTS is a light, fun, amusing SF adventure, an affectionate riff off of STAR TREK, Ghu help us. And the other nominees… only the Robinson could even remotely be considered “literary SF” of the sort the Puppies seems to hate. Saladin’s book was sword & sorcery, a rollicking swashbuckler in the tradition of Robert E. Howard, Harold Lamb, and the Thousand and One Nights. Bujold, well, you could call her Miles Vorkosigan series space opera, or maybe military SF, but her novels are never less than entertaining, good reads all. The Mira Grant is a zombie novel. Zombies, guys.

Now, do I think these were the best five novels of 2012? Actually, no. As best I recall, I only nominated one of them… along with a couple of books that did not make the ballot. (You can find out which ones if you look back on my Not A Blog for that year’s recs). But it’s a pretty typical ballot, worse than some, better than others, with ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE of any kind of “social justice” agenda or conspiracy.

Let’s look further down the LoneStarCon ballot. Novella: won by “The Emperor’s Soul,” by Brandon Sanderson, a pretty traditional story by an epic fantasist who also happens to be Mormon. (Where is that religious bigotry? Did the SJWs miss him?) One of the other nominees was by Aliette de Bodard, who many Puppies seem to count as one of the despised SJWs, but if the secret cabal was working for her, they fucked it up, because she lost. The other nominees were Nancy Kress, Jay Lake, and (again) Mira Grant. So far maybe we have some evidence of a Mira Grant clique, but none of a Social Justice clique.

Go to Novelette. Won by “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi,” by Pat Cadigan. A brilliant story from a long time fan who had never won a Hugo before, and hadn’t even been nominated for decades. The most popular win of the evening; the crowd in the hall went wild cheering. Pat won over two stories by Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), one by Catherynne Valente, and one by Thomsas Olde Heuvelt. Was it this shortlist that provoked the Puppies? Four women and only one man there, is that the issue? A surfeit of McGuire/ Grant, maybe? Or were there some brilliant conservative novelettes that year that were overlooked? I honestly do not know.

Short Story only had three nominees. Ken Liu won over Aliette de Bodard and Kij Johnson. The SJWs are really letting down the side, that’s twice they left de Bodard lose. (I hope I remembered to give her a Hugo Loser ribbon, she certainly earned it). No other short story had 5% of the nominating ballots, which is why the list was too small. When there are no slates, that happens: everyone has their own favorites, votes scatter.

Further down the ballot, Brandon Sanderson won again for Best Related Work, together with a bunch of friends. SAGA won Graphic Story, damn good comic, damn good choice. That radical leftist film THE AVENGERS won Long Form Drama, and something called GAME OF THRONES won Short Form. And for editor — hey, Stanley Schmidt finally won for ANALOG… but oh, dear, Patrick Nielsen Hayden won for Long Form Editor. Now we see the power of the SJWs: they won, oh, wow, ONE whole Hugo at LoneStarCon.

That’s just one year, though. Let’s turn the clock back further, to Chicon 7 in Chicago, and the nominees for the best work of 2011.

The Big One went to Jo Walton and AMONG OTHERS. My own nominee, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, finished last. In between you had EMBASSYTOWN by China Mieville (who is a vocal and passionate leftist, yes, but also a helluva powerful writer), LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S.A. Corey (a rousing space opera that any fan of the Good Old Stuff should love, soon to be a major TV series from the SyFy Channel), and DEADLINE by Mira Grant. Another zombie story, I seem to recall, same world as her other Best Novel nominees. Kij Johnson, Charlie Jane Anders, and Ken Liu won the Short Fiction Awards. Is there something about them or their stories that the Puppies object to? What could it be? Their literary style? Or…

Actually, looking at the other nominees, maybe THIS is the ballot that provoked the Proto-Puppies to sadness. Mira Grant has another nominee in novella. Mary Robinette Kowal was also up there, and MRK seems widely hated by the right for her work as SFWA Vice President ( a thankless job that I did once). Ken Liu won for Short Story but lost for novella. Catherynne Valente had a losing novella. And Short Story, seven hells, look at that ballot: beside Liu there is E. Lily Yu, the despised John Scalzi, Nancy Fulda , and… oh, look, Mike Resnick, however did the liberal cabal ever let HIM sneak in?

Novelette is pretty interesting too. Charlie Jane Anders won out over Paul Cornell, the affable Brit, Geoff Ryman, the affable Canadian, Rachel Swirsky (author, a few years later, of that dinosaur story that has all the Puppy Panties in a twist), and… “Ray of Light,” by Brad R. Torgersen, from ANALOG.

Condolences, Brad. You are a Hugo Loser. But hey, congratulations. You are a Hugo Loser. It’s an exclusive club. We get together annually, clank our beers together, and chant, “It’s an honor just to be nominated” in unison. Were you at the con? Did I give you a ribbon? If not, I’ll be sure you get one, should we ever met. Wear it proudly. The rest of us do. If that list I linked to is right, I’ve lost fifteen. When you lose, the fannish tradition is to congratulate the winner and shake their hand, then go to our Hugo Loser Party to get drunk and bitter. When I lose, my friends all tell me I’ve been robbed. Makes me feel better. Even when I know it isn’t true.

Looking further down the Chicon ballot, we come to the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Not a Hugo. E. Lily Yu was the winner. She finished ahead of Karen Lord, Stina Leicht, Mur Lafferty, and… ah… Brad R. Torgersen again. Sorry, Brad. Two losses in one night, that’s hard to take. But it’s an honor too. Very few writers have ever been nominated for a Campbell and a Hugo in the same year. Actually, you may be the first. Being a Campbell Award loser does not officially qualify one for the Hugo Losers Club, but we usually let them in anyway. FWIW, I lost the very first Campbell Award, in 1973 at Torcon II. I was a nominee, but never really a contender, to tell the truth. Jerry Pournelle won that first Campbell, defeating George Alec Effinger so narrowly that the con gave him a special runner-up plaque, the first and last time that was ever done. I was way back behind both, so no plaques for me. But I did lose two Hugos in a single night once, in 1976 in Kansas City, Big Mac. Lost one to Larry Niven, and one to Roger Zelazny. The next night, Gardner Dozois and I founded the Hugo Losers Club, and held the first Hugo Losers Party in my room.

Onward and backward, though. Let’s go back to Renovation. Reno, Nevada, 2011. Best work of 2010. Connie Willis wins the Big One for BLACKOUT/ ALL CLEAR. The other nominees were Mira Grant (for FEED, the first of her zombie cycle, I believe), Lois McMaster Bujold, N.K. Jemison with THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, and THE DERVISH HOUSE by the amazing Ian McDonald.

I know what Vox Day thinks of Jemison, since I read his poisonous screed. (He is a Rabid Puppy, I know, not a Sad one, and I would hope most SPs would disavow his bile, regardless of their literary preferences or political affiliations). Vox attacked the GOH speech she gave at an Australian convention… but since the Sad Puppies here have stated often that they only care about the work, not the race or the views of the writer, surely there could not have been any objections to THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS… or the Bujold, or the McDonald.

The novella award went to Ted Chiang… a writer of literary SF, we may agree, but one of the most powerful to enter our field in many years. There’s a reason Chiang wins every time he is nominated for a award. He’s bloody good. Novelette, though… that went to Alan Steele for “The Emperor of Mars,” a classic retro-SF story that he actually wrote for OLD MARS, the anthology Gardner and I were putting together. When we were unable to place the project, however, Alan sold the story to ASIMOV’S, and it brought him home a rocket. Classic old style SF in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I will skip over the rest of Reno… except for the John W. Campbell Award. The fans chose Lev Grossman as the Best New Writer, over Lauren Beukes, Saladin Ahmed, Dan Wells… and Larry Correia. This, it seems to me, was BEFORE he started his first Puppies campaign. Dan Wells was also a Sad Puppy at one time… though this year he asked not to be part of the slate.

I have read Correia’s blog, and I know he says that he was treated very badly at the Reno worldcon, attacked for his views, denounced as a racist and homophobe. I was at Reno myself, but I don’t recall meeting him, so I don’t know the details of any of that. It shocks me to hear it, because the fandom I know has always been warm and welcoming to people of all political views. We are there to party and flirt and celebrate SF, after all. I regret any personal attacks or abuse that Correia may have suffered.

I will say, though, that there is no dishonor in losing to a writer as gifted as Lev Grossman, and many many terrific writers have lost the Campbell Award over the decades, starting with me. And it is an INCREDIBLE honor just to be nominated. Think about it. We have hundreds of new writers entering our field every year, all of them dreaming of careers, all of them fighting for recognition, trying to build their brand… and a few, maybe, lusting for rockets. Out of all those people, the fans nominated FIVE (sometimes six) for the Campbell.

There were no Sad Puppies when Larry Correia was nominated for the Campbell, when Brad Torgersen was nominated for the Campbell, when Torgersen was nominated for his first Hugo. (Subsequent noms, yes, may have resulted from Puppy campaigns). That was the traditional Hugo electorate putting you on the ballot… you, and a lot of other conservative writers, religious writers, white male writers, and purveyors of space opera, military SF, and Good Old Stuff.

There was never any need for Sad Puppies to “take back” the Hugos. The feminists, minorities, literary cliques, and Social Justice Warriors never took them in the first place. That’s a myth, as the actual facts I have cited here prove conclusively.

Let me begin with the basics:

Who owns the Hugo Awards?

You know, looking back, I am probably partly to blame for some of the misconceptions that seem to exist on this point. For years now I have been urging people to nominate for the Hugo Awards, and saying things like “this is your award” and “this award belongs to the fans, the readers.” I felt, and still feel, that wider participation would be a good thing. Thousands of fans vote for the Hugos most years, but until recently only hundreds ever bothered to nominate.

Still my “it is your award” urgings were not entirely accurate.

Truth is, the Hugo Awards belong to worldcon. The World Science Fiction Convention.

The first worldcon was held in 1939, when 200 fans got together in New York City. The first Hugo Awards were given in 1953, at a worldcon in Philadelphia. No awards were given in 1954, but in 1955 they returned, and have been an annual tradition ever since. Me, I was five years old in 1953, so it was some years later when I became aware of the Hugos. Can’t recall exactly when. I did become aware, though… and I soon learned that “Hugo Award Winner” on the cover of a book meant I had a damned good read in my hands.

I attended my first worldcon in 1971. Noreascon I, in Boston. By then I was already a “filthy pro,” with two — count ’em, two — short story sales to my credit, and another half-dozen stories in my backpack that I thought I could show to editors at the con. (Hoo hah. Doesn’t work that way. The last thing an editor wants is someone thrusting a manuscript at him during a party, when he’s trying to drink and flirt and dicuss the state of the field. What can I say? I was green. It was my second con, my first worldcon). In those days, the Hugo Awards were presented at a banquet. I did not have the money to buy a banquet ticket (I was sleeping on the floor of a fan friend, since I did not have the money for a hotel room either), but they let the non-ticket-holders into the balcony afterwards, and I got to watch Robert Silverberg present the Hugos. Silverbob was elegant, witty, urbane, the winners were thrilled, everyone was well-dressed, and by the end of the evening I knew (1) I wanted to be a part of this world, and (2) one day, I wanted to win a Hugo. Rocket lust. I had it bad.

((Never believe anyone who states loudly and repeatedly that they don’t care about awards, especially if they don’t care about one award in particular. Aesop saw through that okey-doke centuries ago. Boy, them grapes are sour. If you don’t care about something, you don’t think about it, or talk about it, or try to change the rules so you get one. The people who keep shouting that they don’t care if they ever win a Hugo are the ones who want one the most, take that to the bank)).

Two years later, the worldcon was in Toronto… and I still did not have enough money for the banquet, even though I was an awards nominee. Not for a Hugo, though. That was the first year they gave the John W. Campbell “new writer” award, and I was one of the nominees. Toastmaster Lester del Rey, for reasons known only to him, presented the awards in reverse order, starting with Best Novel and ending with this new award, so by the time he got to the Campbell, the hall was largely empty except for the nominees. I lost. (But went on to sell an anthology of stories by the Campbell nominees, so in that way the award did a huge amount for me). But hey, it was an honor just to be nominated. (It really was. It really is).

The next year, in Washington DC, I lost my first Hugo. “With Morning Comes Mistfall,” nominated in Short Story. The same story lost the Nebula earlier that year. (By a single vote, the sitting SFWA president told me afterwards… which impressed on me right then that Every Vote Matters). At Discon I finally had enough money to buy a banquet ticket. I sat at a table with several other nominees. They all lost as well. Meanwhile, one table over, the rockets were piling up. We all made jokes about being at the wrong table.

Then came 1975. Worldcon was in Australia. I could not afford to go, even though I was once again a Hugo nominee, this time in novella. “A Song for Lya” became my first Hugo winner, in an upset over the Robert Silverberg novella that had earlier won the Nebula. Ben Bova (editor of ANALOG) accepted on my behalf. I was sleeping when they rang me up to tell me. Thought I was dreaming. But no, it was real. The rocket arrived a few months later (Ben Bova gave it to Gordy Dickson who gave it to Joe Haldeman who presented it to me at Windycon).

I have won a few more Hugos since, most notably at Noreascon II, where I won two. That was especially satisfying. The same city, the same hotel, and the same toastmaster as in 1971, when I’d stood in the balcony lusting after rockets. Dreams can come true, I told the crowd when Silverbob gave me the first Hugo. When he gave me the second, he chided me for being greedy. The crowd laughed, and so did I.

I will always treasure those memories. One of the greatest nights of my life.

I returned to losing the next year, at Denvention. Have won a few and lost a few more in the years and decades since. But I never fail to attend the ceremonies, and I never ever fail to nominate and vote (well, okay, I think I missed a year in there when I lost track of the date).

That’s the short version of Me & the Hugos, or What the Rocket Means to Me.

You will all have noted, no doubt, a common thread here: worldcon.

The Hugos belong to worldcon.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, worldcon was the center of fandom. It was the oldest convention, the largest convention, the annual “gathering of the tribes” where fans of all sorts got together. Regionals were few and far between until the 70s, and even when they became more numerous, none of them ever came near Labor Day, worldcon’s traditional dates. Comics fans came to worldcon, “media fans” came to worldcon (though the term “media fan” did not exist), costumers and filk-singers came to worldcon, game-players came to worldcon (though there was not much gaming, and the term “gamer” did not exist either). In time, though, as each of these sub-fandoms grew larger, they began to split off and form their own conventions. Suddenly you had comic cons, and Star Trek cons, and costume cons, and so on. Worldcon still offered panels and tracks for these areas, but fans whose main interest was in Trek or comic books or costuming began to drift away. The World Fantasy Con was born, for those whose interest was more in fantasy and horror than in SF. “Book cons” were born, like Readercon, for the prose lovers.

Worldcon continued… but the steady growth that had characterized worldcon through the 60s and 70s stopped. That 1984 worldcon in LA remained the largest one in history until last year at London. Meanwhile San Diego Comicon and Gencon and Dragoncon grew bigger than worldcon… twice the size, ten times the size, twenty times the size… Dragoncon even went so far as to break with a half-century old fannish tradition by moving to Labor Day, worldcon’s traditional date, a date that had up to then been inviolate. And why not? Dragoncon’s attendees were fans, sure, they were comics fans and Star Wars fans and cosplay fans, and some were even book fans… but they were not “trufans,” as that term was commonly used, and they didn’t care when worldcon was.

(The term “trufans” is an unfortunate one in this argument, since some of the Sad Puppies and their supporters take it amiss, and understandly, when told they don’t qualify. The term is a very old one, however, probably dates back to THE ENCHANTED DUPLICATOR, a parody of PILGRIM’S PROGRESS about the search for “true fandom.” Like “SMOF,” it is at least partially a joke. And if any of this paragraph makes any sense to you, you are undoubtedly a trufan… but don’t worry, you don’t need to know what a mimeograph machine is to be a real fan, I swear).

You can still make a case for worldcon being the center of fandom as recently as 1984… but after that, well, “fandom” began to assume new meanings. There was no longer just one fandom, there were several. Comics fandom, media fandom, etc.

That’s all great. I have attended many comicons over the years (I attended the very first one, even before my first SF con). I have written for TV and film, and been a guest at media cons. I love comics, I love TV, and I love film… but most of all, I love books, which is why I go to worldcon every year. There are many fandoms now, but worldcon fandom is MY fandom.

And worldcon fandom owns the Hugos.

Worldcon fans invented them, tended them, wrote the rules, designed the rockets. Worldcon fans tradmarked the name, and defended the mark when other (non fannish, none SF) groups tried to give their own Hugo awards. And it is because of all this history, all this passion, all this care, that the Hugo has remained the most prestigious and best known award in our field.

(In my Not So Humble Opinion, anyway).

Other conventions have other awards. Wiscon has the Tiptrees. The World Fantasy Con presents the World Fantasy Awards, or Howards. The Bram Stokers are given by the HWA, the Nebulas by SFWA. Libertarians have the Prometheus Awards, though I don’t know where they give them out. I just came back from Norwescon, where they handed out the Philip K. Dick Award. We used to have Balrogs and the Gandalfs, but they went away. The Japanese have the Seiun awards, the Spanish have the Gigameshs, the Czechs the Newts. Australians have Ditmars, Canadians Auroras. Gamers have Origins Awards, comic fans have Inkpots and Eisners.

I don’t denigrate any of these awards. I’ve won an Inkpot, I’ve handed out an Eisner. I won a Balrog too, but it was smashed before it reached me. I have a Newt and a bunch of Gigameshs and even a Seiun. Awards are cool. Awards are fun. Or should be. I don’t expect I will ever win a Tiptree or a Prometheus or a Dick, but that’s fine, I applaud them all the same. Writing is a hard gig, man. Any recognition is a plus. Big or small, any award is a pat on the back, a way of saying, “hey, you did good,” and we all need that from time to time.

If the Sad Puppies wanted to start their own award… for Best Conservative SF, or Best Space Opera, or Best Military SF, or Best Old-Fashioned SF the Way It Used to Be… whatever it is they are actually looking for… hey, I don’t think anyone would have any objections to that. I certainly wouldn’t. More power to them.

But that’s not what they are doing here, it seems to me. Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards. Hey, anyone is welcome to join worldcon, to become part of worldcon fandom… but judging by the comments on the Torgesen and Correia sites, a lot of the Puppies seem to actively hate worldcon and the people who attend it, and want nothing to do with us. They want to determine who gets the Ditmars, but they don’t want to be Australians.

The prestige of the Hugo does not derive from the number of people voting on it. If numbers were all that counted, worldcon should hand the awards over to Dragoncon and be done with it. (Though I am not sure that Dragoncon would care. Years ago, the LOCUS awards used to be presented at Dragoncon. I attended one of those ceremonies, the last time I went to Dragoncon. Charles Brown handed out the awards in a cavernous hotel ballroom that was ninety per cent empty. The same ballroom was filled up standing room only for the following event, a Betty Page Look-Alike Contest. Which tells you what Dragoncon attendees were interested in. Which tells you what Dragoncon attendees were interested in… and hey, I like Betty Page too. A few years later, LOCUS moved its awards to Westercon, where they always draw a big crowd.

The prestige of the Hugo derives from its history. The worth of any award is determined in large part by the people who have won it. Would I love to win the Hugo for Best Novel some day? You’re damned right I would. But not because I need another rocket to gather dust on my mantle, as handsome as the Hugo trophies are. I want one because Robert A. Heinlein won four, because Roger Zelazny and Alfred Bester and Ursula K. Le Guin and Fritz Leiber and Walter M. Miller Jr and Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl and so many other giants have won the same award. That’s a club that any science fiction and fantasy writer should be thrilled to join.

Only… here’s the caveat… I wouldn’t want to join the club because I was part of someone’s slate, or because my readers were better organized or more vocal than the fans of other authors. It is not easy to win a Hugo, and it is especially hard to win the Big One — Hugo voters a tough crowd, one might say — but if that honor ever does come to one of my books, I hope it is because the voters did actually, honestly believe I wrote the best novel of the year, a work worthy to stand on the shelf beside LORD OF LIGHT and THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS and STAND ON ZANZIBAR and THE FOREVER WAR and GATEWAY and SPIN and…

Elsewise, hell, what’s the point? I can go down to the trophy shop and buy myself all the bowling trophies I want, if the point is just the hardware.

Which brings me to the subject of campaigning, but I will address that another day, in another post. I have a couple of other things I want to discuss first.

[[Once again, comments and dissent are welcome, but I expect courtesy from all parties. And yes, that means those of you who are on “my side” as well. Let’s not throw around insults, or charges of misogyny and racism, please. And Puppies, sad or happy, if any of you feel inclined to reply, please avoid the term “Social Justice Warriors” or SJWs. I am happy to call you Sad Puppies since you named yourself that, but I know of no one, be they writer or fan, who calls themselves a social justice warrior. Offending or insulting posts will be deleted. We can disagree here, but let’s try for respectful disagreement.]]