SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The 75th World Science Fiction Convention (commonly known as WorldCon) is being held this weekend in Helsinki, Finland. The convention is where the annual Hugo Awards are presented, and today, the convention announced the latest recipients.
This year, women almost completely swept the Hugo Awards, taking home the top prizes for literature in the science fiction community. That's particularly notable, given how the awards have been increasingly recognizing works from female and minority creators. The trend prompted a counter-movement from two group of fans, the self-described "Sad Puppies," and their alt-right equivalents, the "Rabid Puppies." These groups gamed the awards and forced a slate of nominees onto the Hugo ballot in 2015, prompting widespread backlash within the wider genre community. Another award, the Dragon, faced similar issues earlier this week when several authors asked to pull their nominations over concerns about Puppy interference and the award's integrity.
This year's sweep by female creators seems to be a strong repudiation of anti-diversity groups. 2017 also marked the year the ceremony earned its own award: a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records certified that the Hugos are the longest-running science fiction awards ever.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by Weasley on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:46PM (1 child)
So....use a female pseudonym if I want my book to be published?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:52PM
Try "Ginny".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:48PM (4 children)
The Puppies were pointing out that the Hugos were political awards being given out based on "diversity" instead of quality. I think it is now impossible to argue against that point with this years batch. But more important, we can demonstrate the declining quality of what is being called "Science Fiction" by declining sales of the sort of works they are giving awards to. WorldCon attendance also isn't doing so well. They are a dying breed, we should let them pass.
This was noting less than a demonstration of the dangers of SJW entryism. The Hugos had a long glorious history of honoring quality and so they seized it and redistributed that glory to the undeserving. But they have now consumed and destroyed it, it now means nothing to win one, it will even mean less than nothing in that it will become a mark of works to avoid. With this years batch it already does mean that, readers will quickly realize it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:43PM (3 children)
And no one worried about losing the business of sad puppy sympathizers.
Being on the wrong side of history sucks eh? Good luck with your failed worldview.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:32PM (2 children)
It is worse, they apparently do not care about losing the business of everyone. That is the point, the sales figures suck. Go to a bookstore and look at the SF&F section. It is smaller than it once was but it is worse. You see a vast section selling franchise tie in junk (Star Wars, Halo, that sort of junk) and a lot of back catalog, i.e. the old stuff written by mostly white dudes. What you do not see much of is the new stuff by these diversity hires. The publishers keep signing these talentless politicians but the book buying public does not buy them. Because when they aren't political screeds they are romance books tarted up with some Syfy tropes. Young nerdboys aren't going to read them and anyone else who does is not going to be inspired to grow up and be an astronaut, they will grow up to be a buttpirate in SanFran.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:54PM
Your stupidity is showing. Now git off mah lawn!
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday August 18 2017, @02:35AM
When I go to a bookstore, I don't even see the back catalog stuff. I see the tie-in stuff, the last several installments of various urban fantasy, modern/future milscif, medieval milscif, and franchise series, and second or third books of excessively long fantasy trilogies by authors who started writing video game tie-ins.
I rarely see a standalone of ANY genre, nor do I see good short story collections, new authors or books in translation (despite seeing stellar reviews of foreign authors all the time).
My interpretation is that publishers and bookstores are so risk averse, they won't risk physically stocking anything new, old, or anything demanding, preferring the custom of casual repeat buyers to that of serious readers.
As an example from another genre, crime fiction author Sara Paretsky, in an interview a couple of years back, said that publishers are now unwilling to sign anyone they don't think will move 20,000 copies of their first novel, a total she didn't achieve until her sixth.
I expect they restrict new authors to primarily online sales until they reach a certain threshold, which means they not only are not seen in bookstores, where at least they can be discovered serendipitously, but also are hidden by online retailers' search algorithms from anyone whose buying profile is judged to not match the book's likely-sale profile--thus making it less likely that readers will read something they are not absolutely comfortable with, and consequently that publishers become even more likely to publish pap that sells quickly or that only matches the tastes of established customer categories than to tale risks on anything new, dangerous or interesting.
At least, with the exception of the Herbert estate, the spec-fic publishers haven't gone the way of other genres and started churning out vast numbers of books and sequels under the names of dead authors, even further diluting the market.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:00PM (8 children)
This entire thread is loaded with misogynistic anger and presumptuous elitism. It actually isn't much different from the AGW crowd with their armchair PhDs. Lots of men made the list, and presumptions about "true" sci-fi are so blatantly reactionary.
Why does everyone here care so much about women taking most of the top slots? Care to review history and see how many men claimed top awards since the Hugo's started? Basically men got used to a specific format that catered to their preferences, and paired with some blatant misogyny / general anger at life you get reactionaries who think women/gays/the left are coming to destroy their entire way of life.
Sad indeed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:12PM (7 children)
You're confusing sci-fi fans who're pissed off that their genre has been stolen out from under them with people who give a shit about identity politics. Is it intentional misdirection or are you just a fool?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:11PM (2 children)
You're confusing sci-fi fans who're pissed off that their genre has been stolen out from under them with people who give a shit about identity politics.
But has their genre really been stolen out from under them? Or are they just fading out? I honestly don't know.
What I'm getting at is: are these old-style sci-fi fans (the ones who liked reading about things like the Heechee, or societies on the Moon with line marriages, or novels postulating the creation of a space elevator or geosynchronous satellites, or novels about sandworms on a desert planet and the feudalistic spacefaring society that battles over control of the "melange" produced by these worms) being pushed aside by a small minority of people pushing identity politics, or are they dying out, and being replaced by new sci-fi (or "sci-fi") fans who want to read stories about identity politics in a near-future setting? Heinlein's most famous books came out in the early 60s after all, which is over a half-century ago. His fans from that time are literally dying out. Other "classic" sci-fi stuff dates from the 60s and 70s largely--Clarke, Pohl, Asimov, etc. I like a lot of this kind of sci-fi too, but most of it came out either before I was born or when I was much too young to read it.
Now, take a look at the sci-fi movies that are popular now, and also novels: there isn't much optimistic sci-fi about humans traveling around in spaceships (with really cool corridors [denofgeek.com]), but instead we have a bunch of dystopian sci-fi set in the near-future on Earth, as epitomized by "The Hunger Games", or worse, "The Walking Dead" (which I'm convinced is an accurate portrayal of our future in this particular universe).
It'd be interesting to see the sales numbers for these Hugo-award winning books. Are they truly popular now? If so, then the award is working the way it's supposed to. Or are some other, very different ("harder") sci-fi novels far more popular? With the way sci-fi has gone these days, I wouldn't be surprised if it really is the former.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:32AM
Based on your list above, I would recommend some Hal Clement novels. Some of the hardest of hard SF. Apart from obvious gimmicks like an FTL drive everything is accurate.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday August 18 2017, @03:17AM
Good point.
I've read the scientists-as-rational-supermen spec-fic of the Gernsbeck/Campbell days (well before my time, but available in reprints), as well as that of the the overlapping periods of space-colonies-and-near-human-alien-cultures, the stream-of-consciousness-meets-human-potential-movement, the cyberpunk-if-this-goes-on-inhuman-alien-cultures, the urban-fantasy-collapsing-society-military-fantasies, distopia-societal-issues-and-deconstruction-of-established-tropes periods, and the fiercely nostalgic backlashes to all of these.
Among them, I have read towering works of genius, fascinating series, and lots and lots of pulp, some of which was fun, and some of which I can't believe I read, much less enjoyed.
All I know is this:
I may not like all of it, but, as long as I am around, I will still be reading it, pushing it, and defending it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:05PM (1 child)
No I'm not, you are apparently confused about your own beliefs. It is ok, it is a common trait amongst highly narcissistic people, they convince themselves that they are the victims when in reality they are the aggressors. This extends to many facets of the personality, greedy penny pinchers think they are generous, bigots think they are just "telling it like it is", etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:10PM
PS: I used to get Hugo Award sci fi story collections published in one giant book. The type of stories you are mad about have been around forever, and the typical sci fi archetype has been beaten to death. I guess what's more surprising is someone that claims to be intelligent can't cope with the fact that literature and language is in constant flux.
Find some better evidence of collusion, beyond your own whining, and then we can have a conversation about it. Until then you should realize you come off as a majorly insecure tool with a persecution complex.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:30AM (1 child)
Hey TMB, I'd like to offer my services as an extra moderator in this story.
If you give me 50 or so mod points, I'll spend them in this story, downmodding every ad hominem and every instance of ridiculing others without backing it up.
Always glad to be of service,
FakeBeldin.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:40PM
Five per day per customer. If you're down-modding more than up-modding though, you're doing moderation wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by darnkitten on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:27PM (4 children)
who here has read anything on the list?
Reading the thread, I found two comments indicating the commenters had read at least one entry, one where the commenter had read a teaser or summary, and one where the commenter seemed to say he was planning to listen to audiorecordings of the winners.
I am afraid that due to work pressures, I wasn't able to read everything on the novel/novella/novelette/series lists this year, though I did read those that had been up for Nebula Awards.
I found The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (which I read along with the earlier book in the series), Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders to be enjoyable reads. None are scifi, but I would classify the first two as solid specfic, one exploring a scifi concept in a fantasy setting, and the other exploring a fantasy concept in a scifi setting. All the Birds... was basically a YA novel, looking at the concepts that, in a two-party conflict, the conflict will likely be escalated by a combination of ignorance of the other side and the personal agendas of the more influential members, and that neither side will realize that there may be more "sides" than the main two. While I haven't read it yet, I would probably have favored Death’s End by Cixin Liu for the Hugo, assuming it is up the the quality of the other two in the series.
I very much enjoyed the YA novella "Every Heart a Doorway" by Seanan McGuire, having grown up on Narnia, the Green Knowe and Oz, among others, but, not having read any of the others, can't say whether it is the best of the list. Same with the TV adaptation of The Expanse, which is the only of the shortform dramatic presentations I have seen (I would complain about the casting, but the award is for the script, to which I have no objections).
Finally, in the series category--while I enjoy Bujold's other work, I have never been able to get into Miles Vorkosigan. I would, of the other two series I have read in the category, prefer Novik's Temeraire, just slightly, slightly over the pseudonymous Corey's Expanse.
So any recommendations from the remaining nominees, as to what I should read or acquire next? I probably won't get the short stories, as my patrons generally prefer long-form, but beyond that....
-
As an aside, my patrons who read sci-fan tend to break down at least two-to-one in favor of fantasy, from adolescents to seniors, and have done for years.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:56PM (1 child)
When I was writing post 555003 I went and looked up summaries for everything that won. Pretty much everything that won seemed to lean toward the fantasy side, meaning that I would never read it. If I have to choose between some shitty pulp SF about a lucky space captain fighting aliens or a book that mentions the word "magic" at all, I will always read the pulp crap. It seems weird to me that the Hugo's describe themselves as being all SFy but then give out awards for Fantasy, aren't there other awards that could be given out for Fantasy works?
As an aside, I found Death’s End to be up to the quality of the other two.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Informative) by darnkitten on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:17AM
I apologize if I sounded condemnatory--that was not my intention. At least you read the summaries, (though I'm not sure the the summarizer did a good job if your descriptions are true to the summaries, to wit: Obelisk Gate, inspired by a paper at an astronomical conference, is a fantasy exploring the geological (and cultural) effects of destroying the frickin' moon; while Every Heart a Doorway is exploring the psychological effects that living on the worlds on the other side of magical portals (Wonderland, Oz, Narnia, as well as darker ones) has on the kids who go there, and the worse effects of returning, sometimes forcibly, to the real world; when I was reading the Vorkosigan Saga, it was pretty ordinary military scifi, albeit with better characters and worldbuilding than most--often about how one would successfully run a military organization when one is not a person the soldiers would see as any sort of proper leader or commander--interesting conceptually, but, at the time, I was more into Bolos or Hammer's Slammers-style pulp action).
I was more making a general comment on how the tenor of an award thread tends more toward criticizing the perceived content of the nominees in question, and away from actually reading them. Similarly, with the Nebulas, I started reading the nominees with a negative impression of most, due to the way they were described in the SN thread, but found, when I actually read them, that they were pretty good reads--not always to my taste--but worthwhile investments of my time and energy, nonetheless.
I was also asking for feedback on which of the shortlist it might be worthwhile reviewing for acquisitions, given that most of my library's spec-fic readers prefer fantasy (to my dismay).
-
Sounds reasonable--everyone has genres they don't care to read. I've been forced into reading fantasy, though it is certainly not my favorite genre, due to the need to buy for my fantasy-reading patrons. I'm slowly developing an appreciation of some of it. (You might try Ninefox Gambit, though--it's not bad--essentially a scifi setting, though with an underlay of Korean-style astrology-as-science, which adds a unique flavor.)
_
As to the Hugos and fantasy, their website says:
Robert Silverberg and Philip Jose Farmer, both of whom I'd consider to be more Fantasists than SciFictionists, won Hugos in the first three years of the Awards, and Anne McCaffrey won both Hugo and Nebula awards for her Pern stories, which is basically fantastic fiction in a space-opera universe. Admittedly, SciFi proper did dominate the early awards, but Fantasy has always claimed its part, and has grown more dominant therein, as it sadly has in the marketplace in general...
Besides, I think there always needs to be a bit of Fantasy allowed in Scifi awards, if only to prevent the dreary quibbles over whether FTL travel is scientific or fantastic, and whether Star Wars and Star Trek should be included in the genre. :)
-
...Oh, and thanks for the recommendation--I'll order Death's End directly. I'm looking forward to it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:48AM (1 child)
I've read The Expanse books and greatly enjoyed them. It's not clear from the TV show yet, but basically it turns into galactic Stargate with three half-waring half-peaceful factions of humans (Earthers, Martians, Belters) and three 'baddies' (aliens who tried to 'kill' Earth millions of years ago, the aliens who obliterated those aliens, and the evil corporations trying to steal all the alien tech). It is science fiction in that it's asking what would happen if we were colonizing our solar system and discovered portals to new worlds. How would that affect our society? The TV show is more focused on the character dynamics and less on the higher level story. There's more action suspense tossed in to keep you glued to the screen instead of mystery.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday August 18 2017, @02:45AM
I've enjoyed both, though the casting of the show still annoys me (of course, I would say that about most adaptations); also, I think they should have held off filming the series until effects were good enough to make the Belters look like Belters!