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The Hugo awards, being the favorite they are with SN readers, are out again!
As posted at The Vox.
The first-ever threepeat of the Hugo Awards — the prestigious, long-running fantasy awards handed out annually at WorldCon — just issued a giant rejection of right-wing gatekeeping in the struggle to diversify the world of science fiction and fantasy writing.
N.K. Jemisin's groundbreaking fantasy series the Broken Earth trilogy has won critical acclaim, been optioned for development as a TV series, and received numerous accolades from the sci-fi and fantasy community. And on August 19, it achieved yet another milestone when Jemisin became the first author in the Hugos' 65-year history to win back-to-back awards for every book in a trilogy. Jemisin won the award for Best Novel three years in a row, starting with The Fifth Season in 2016, The Obelisk Gate in 2017, and now The Stone Sky in 2018.
Meanwhile, The Verge reports:
The 2018 Hugo Awards were held last night at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California. The Hugo award, voted on by members of the fan community, is considered the highest honor for science fiction and fantasy literature.
Like the previous couple of years, women almost completely swept the awards. N.K. Jemisin took home the top honor for The Stone Sky, the third installment of her Broken Earth trilogy. Other winners include Martha Wells for her first Murderbot novella All Systems Red, Suzanne Palmer for her novelette “The Secret Life of Bots,” and Rebecca Roanhorse for her short story “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™.” (Roanhorse also took home the John W. Campbell Jr. Award for Best New Writer.)
Jemisin’s win gives her a history-making hat trick: she’s won the top award for each Broken Earth installment, the first two having been for The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate. It’s a significant achievement, earned for Jemisin’s groundbreaking writing, blending of genres, and outstanding storytelling.
The complete list of nominees can be found in The Verge's story. Additional reporting can be found at the Guardian, on TOR.com, and elsewhere.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @07:07PM (3 children)
The only real position I've been able to glean from the sad puppy supporters is basically a mimicry of the social vs. hard sciences discrimination that tends to float around here.
A lot of the new sci fi, supposedly especially the stuff written by women, is about character development and society and lacks the "real hard scifi elements". Basically not enough science in the new science fiction seems to be the main complaint. My guess is that is a part of why The Martian was so popular, tons of Macgyver-ish science stuff and some good humor.
I think this whole situation is quite childish of the puppy supporters, they want the same comfortable enjoyable format they grew up with. The irony is pretty appalling, scifi has always been the genre that pushes cultural boundaries and discusses possibilities for humanity's future. Gender and race issues have never featured too terribly much in earlier scifi, partly I think because those early scifi writers wanted to skip past the ugly reality of the present and imagine a future where such trivial matters were no longer even an issue!
Now those issues are being tackled because it is politically OK with most of society to write about them and still sell books. I'm sure not every sad puppy member is a misogynistic racist, but sadly that is the underlying tone of their movement. Once the sad puppies are able to bridge that gap in their prejudice then we can have some discussions about the meritocracy of Hugo Award winners, and a good start would be for them to start separating themselves from the racist human garbage in their midst.
Examples of the bad/stupid/childish behavior
Half savage? I guess that racism just never ends.
Unabashed pulp action? Bleh, that has never been an overly popular scifi genre. Those are the books left out for free, or 10 for $1 type of thing. Like romance novels they are terribly cliche and fit a niche, but will likely never get any award without some truly deeper story behind the blam blam fizz pop weeoooo fwoosh action.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 22 2018, @07:53PM
Blarg, here I go posting without reading all the comments again. You pretty much pre-hit all the points I made.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @09:09PM
Identity politics and collectivism have no future. To the extent that sci-fi metaphorically deals with current social ills, the emotionally infantile SJW contingent is that current social ill. The only social issue that desperately needs addressing could well be done so in a tome titled "Sanctimonious Twats in Space". That is the hard science!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday August 22 2018, @09:48PM
So we're here at the Traditional Italian Food Awards competition, and a bunch of illegal aliens stormed the gates and elected a taco as the winner of the italian Food Awards competition, and somehow the "problem" is the people who got stormed didn't lay back and think of England enough; Victim blaming at its finest.
Its really no different than voting "Taylor Swift's 22" the winner at a "Greatful Dead Awards Show". What kind of shitty person would do that, to begin with, and why?
... romance novel in space.
Anyone who wanted shitty romance novels HAD shitty romance novels. For awhile there was sci fi as an interesting intellectual adventure. Now progress means we no longer have a choice; shitty romance novels for all and attack anyone who doesn't like them because thats "diversity" and thats why "diversity" is great, LOL.