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In Science Fiction, some awards have become almost meaningless as they came to be dominated by interests other than the pure enjoyment of a truly good story. The Hugo Awards, for example, have descended into a left/right catfight. They have become as meaningless as a Nobel Peace Prize.
Some, like yours truly, have entirely stopped reading about awards after getting burned once too many times and rely almost entirely on word of mouth or serendipity to find new authors and worthwhile books.
Our recent discussion of "The winners of the 2018 Hugo Awards" brought the idea (from bzipitidoo) that perhaps Soylent News could do a better job of pointing out new works of Science Fiction that could be of interest to soylentils and janrinok supported the idea, going so far as offering a kidney to the best author. (I think he's British, so he might have meant a kidney pie. [Not true, but funny])
Mind you, we would need to separate Science Fiction from Sci-Fi, Fantasy and other genres that have been mishmashed into one by most publishers and awards organizations.
So what do you think? What is the best new author/book in Science Fiction?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday August 23 2018, @11:55PM (29 children)
That's an odd way to say "the right hated seeing minorities in sci-fi stories and built an astroturf campaign to manipulate votes." I mean, it's a technically true, but it's the exact same "right spitefully burns everything down over perceived slights. followed by people asking why are we so divided on BOTH SIDES" story that permeates everything about our stupid political world.
But regardless, I'm happy with pretty much any sci-fi that's not Cory Doctrow's awful stream-of-consciouness style, "realistic near future" garbage fire.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Friday August 24 2018, @12:36AM (7 children)
Come on America! You're all grown up now, why can there only be two of anything over there?
All your friends have lots of political parties, and any number of different points of view, but you guys can only ever muster two.
I believe in you, I know you can do better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @01:07AM
Sorry, Zombie, but that just isn't going to happen ... especially in the current political climate. We have to be able to blame someone, and it's always easier to point the finger at one enemy.
If we are in power, then they are the opposition - the obstructionists! If they are in power then we are the oppressed - the resistance!
We've always been at war with Eurasia ... or was it Eastasia? See how confusing that can be?
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @02:27AM (1 child)
Electoral math means things eventually collapse to two parties. But we currently have a crapload of warring factions in the runup to what increasingly looks like a hot civil war to thin it back to a couple of survivors.
On the "Progressive" side you have Socialists, Democratic Socialists, Communists, Progressives, Modern Liberals, Feminists (in both the TERF and non TERF flavor), Environmentalists and Idiotarian Libertarians, Social Gospel Pseudo Christians, Muslims, just to start off. Not to mention the whole rainbow of racial and gender identity activists battling for dominance.
On the "Right" you have old line Liberals (known by that name everywhere except the U.S.), Mainline Conservatives, Paleo-Conservatives, Neo-Conservatives, Anti-Idiotarian Libertarians, Objectivists, the Alt-Light, Alt-Right, NRx, Reactionaries, TEA Partiers, Christians, etc. And with every "Fuck White People" tweet a growing White racial identity trying to figure out why it needs to exist.
Then ya get fringe factions that can't even be plotted anywhere near the Left-Right line. For example we got both real and ironic Nazis who oppose the Progs but, by definition, can't be on "the Right". Neither fish nor fowl. Now add in about a third of the country that doesn't really know or care what they believe politically.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @03:55AM
Muslims and Christians are a political class now? Put down the pipe you've had too much.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Friday August 24 2018, @02:59AM (2 children)
The US has had more than two major parties in the past, more than once in fact, but it seems to always eventually devolve into a two-party system. I think this is generally attributed to a tendency of the "first past the post" voting system employed, and is called Duverger's Law [wikipedia.org]. Basically, the idea is that plurality voting (first past the post, e.g. "you only vote for one candidate") discourages the existence of more parties because voting for anything but the biggest two ends up being a wasted vote. People defensively vote for one of the candidates that seem most likely to win, because anything else unlikely to matter, which makes it that much harder for a third party to rise.
To be fair to the early Americans that set these systems up originally, it's one of those things that seems like a good idea until hindsight and new information becomes available. Plurality voting seems like a fair, natural choice, because it works fine at smaller scales (small groups, one-off votes, etc.) where the potential flaws don't matter as much, and it's simple to implement and understand. One person, one vote; easy. They didn't have the benefit of access to decades of election data, so it probably seemed like an obvious choice with few or no negatives.
In theory it's still possible to fix the problem. However, that fix is to change the voting system entirely, which would require the two incumbent parties to agree on a change that's generally known to have the potential to weaken their political power. In other words, not bloody likely.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Friday August 24 2018, @03:35AM (1 child)
I'm always told "it's first past the post", but the UK has FPtP also, and currently has 8 parties in parliament, so I don't buy it.
According to Wikipedia, the US has had two parties since the Civil War, and has never had three parties or more for more than a few years.
You're exactly right about changing the system, too many people make too much money from the status quo for it to change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @09:00AM
Many US voters seem more religious-minded about their party affiliations too.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday August 24 2018, @05:54PM
Primarily, it's because we don't have the parliamentary system [wikipedia.org] here in the US.
What's more, unlike most western democracies, members of the legislative branch of government may not serve in the Executive branch at the same time they are serving in our legislative branch. There is no such thing as a "shadow cabinet" [wikipedia.org] here. In fact, for our Federal/National government, the only elective positions in our executive branch are that of President and Vice President. All other members of the Executive branch are either political appointees or civil servants.
Where you are (please correct me if I'm wrong here), most likely the party (or coalition of parties) which achieve a majority in the legislative branch form an executive branch from the members of the majority. This is *not* the case in the US. Also, the "winner-take-all" system we have (at all levels of government -- we have at least three in most places) generally precludes multi-party coalitions and the wide range of political voices seen in parliamentary systems.
Rightly or wrongly, that's the system we have at the national level. And that same system is, overwhelmingly, duplicated at state and local levels.
If we wish to change that, we need have such changes approved by 2/3 of each house of our legislative branch (note that the 535 folks included there are the ones that benefit most from the current system) and 3/4 of state legislatures.
Which is why, at least until 30 years ago or so, the major political parties in the US (the Republican and Democratic parties) maintained "big tent" [wikipedia.org] policies and platforms.
That's changed pretty radically for the Republican party in the last generation or so. They are now the party of big business, restrictive social policies and white people. This has allowed them to be much more successful at multiple levels of government, as they no longer need to make a broad constituency happy.
The Democratic party is *also* the party of big business. But they have attempted to be inclusive of non-religious, less restrictive social policies and a broad range of ethnic and religious groups. This has fragmented their message, especially at the state and local levels.
It's a good deal more complicated than that, but those are the basics. What's really needed are elected representatives who care more about the good of the United States than about retaining their own power and influence. I'm not holding my breath.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday August 24 2018, @12:45AM (2 children)
TFS fully believes the claims of the "Sad Puppies" or whoever they are now, who decided that the reason why a certain author's books weren't being nominated for Hugos had nothing to do with their quality and everything to do with some sort of discrimination against him because he was a right-wing white guy. In short, he was butthurt because he hadn't won a Hugo, and wanted to change that.
This claim is not disprovable, because we don't know for certain why people nominated and voted for certain books over other books. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to think that the claims were total BS that were being put out there for the purposes of selling more of said right-wing white guy's books. Among the many complaints of the Sad Puppies was that the Hugos were preferring works that were deemed more "literary": Well, it's an award for literature, what the heck did you expect? On top of that, Hugos can and have gone to white guys in recent years. And lastly, nobody is "owed" an award.
Honestly, the Hugos seem like an anachronism to me. Reading Isaac Asimov's anthology of the Hugo-winning novelettes and short stories (which he "brilliantly" decided to call The Hugo Winners), you get a good sense of where the whole thing got started. He described the early annual conventions where they were handed out, and gives the impression of a few hundred friends meeting once a year in a hotel ballroom rather than the thousands of folks at WorldCon nowadays, with the awards basically being given out by authors to each other because they liked each other and each others' work. And as far as being butthurt over not winning any Hugos, it took Asimov a very long time to win his first Hugo, a point which Asimov routinely brought up in both the anthology and apparently as the usual M.C. for the events in question in what was plainly mock dismay. I get the impression that something might have been lost somewhere in all the noise and hype.
That said, some friends of mine who are much more avid sci fi readers than I am were thoroughly impressed with the quality of this years' winners, for whatever that's worth. I haven't read them, so I can't judge their quality directly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 24 2018, @06:56PM (1 child)
So the Hugos started out with authors giving each other awards? Then the Nebula awards are presumably today's equivalent to the Hugos back then.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday August 24 2018, @08:01PM
It was more that the authors and fans were a relatively small and tight-knit group, and were also the only ones who cared enough to vote on the awards early on. So it wasn't like, say, the Golden Globes, where it's explicitly actors & directors awarding actors & directors, it's more that the authors were a majority of those that cared enough about Hugos to vote on them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @01:22AM (13 children)
What is odd, is that you on the left cannot recognize any minority on the right. Remember Doctor Carson, a successful black guy who made a bid to be president of the United States? To you, he was just an Uncle Tom. No minority can be conservative, or independent, or libertarian - they all "owe" their votes to the Democrats.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @01:44AM (2 children)
That is one of the stupider things you've written recently. +5 impressive
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @01:48AM (1 child)
Please, you give me too much credit. I borrowed that stupidity from the left. It all belongs to them.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:14AM
You are so stupid you had to borrow more? Time to live up to your name.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday August 24 2018, @02:29AM (9 children)
As an outsider who is neither a Democrat or a Republican, I can tell you that Dr. Ben Carson is viewed as neither a doctor, or a successful black man, but as a total fuckwit.
America dodged a bullet when he dropped out of the race.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @02:35AM (6 children)
So, uhhhhhh - Carson didn't really perform neural surgery on any patients? And - he didn't make any money doing so? Or, are you arguing the allegation that he is black? Do your views make him un-black, maybe? I think I'm beginning to understand - he's a white guy in the closet, and he should come out now.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:45AM (3 children)
I see him as a once successful and brilliant neurosurgeon who happened to be a total fuckwit as a politician.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @02:54AM (1 child)
Ahhhh, that's better than the above. Carson may or may not be a fuckwit as a politician, but you do give him credit for being a smart mofo who managed to save a lot of lives.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @05:17AM
I just want to chime in that I'm not making fun of you for decent comments. You make a good point, too many people mock Carson but it is crazy hard to stand up in front of the entire country.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:31AM
You've just described all politicians.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday August 24 2018, @03:27AM (1 child)
Conversations about Dr. Carson tended to go something like this:
"That Ben Carson is a brain surgeon"
"Oh, the guy running for president? Must be a smart cookie"
"He doesn't believe in evolution"
"Ha, yeah whatever. Wait, really? What a fuckwit".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @08:49AM
And that is exactly how it should go.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday August 24 2018, @05:25AM (1 child)
Oh yes, the white genuinely mentally unwell asshole we got instead was so much better.
Also we weren't "spared" cain, he's secretary of housing and urban development, and there's been some scandals quietly swallowed up by the ongoing fuckstorm that is trump.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @06:02AM
I guess they all look alike to you, but Herman Cain and Ben Carson are two different black Republicans. One is a world famous neurosurgeon (retired) who is now leading the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the other is a pizza baron turned talk radio host.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:53AM (3 children)
It's strange to see muslims randomly walking through sci fi scenes.
Can anyone explain the black elf [wikia.com] in the Shannara Chronicles. Is this supposed to be a Dark Elf or something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @05:20AM (2 children)
No, it is simply another salvo in the war against racism. Why are there no black elves? Why are all the dark skinned creatures in LOTR the baddies?
I love LOTR, but you can't deny the rather significant racism even if it was unintentional.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @06:17AM
Because elves are part of the myths invented by Europeans. And Tolkien was explicitly creating a myth cycle for his people, the English.
If one is reading a African myth it would be a bit silly if there were random people from other areas unrelated to the setting for the story. Don't remember protests over the lack of Asians in Wakanda for that matter. It isn't racism to realize everybody is not interchangeable units of production.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 24 2018, @11:36AM
Because Morgoth had a lock on black while the other deities all were light-side. So bad things were dark and good things were light.
Unintentional? Elves lived indefinitely, were the fairest, and generally smarter than the humans. And the only consolation prize the humans got were that they got to go to ghetto heaven when they died, far away from sullying the final places of the elves. Orcs/goblins/etc were just tools of the bad guys. They didn't get to go anywhere when they died. The Ents were the only ones with a lock on photosynthesis. Dwarves got to grub in the dirt and be the wealth collectors for the dragons (as well as the second-hand greed stereotype in the books).
But sure, let's make a big deal out of Tolkien not having dark-skinned elves in his books. Real significant racism there.