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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: 2) by MostCynical on Friday August 24 2018, @03:41AM (3 children)
Scifi channel became SyFy and things like Sharknado and Buffy get played, because they need a place to put "alternative reality fiction"
By extension, they could even show Brady Bunch re-runs.
Wince the channel didn't go back, it must rate better than it did when it was SciFi.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @04:48AM (1 child)
Didn't you see The Last Sharknado: It's About Time? All six films are now a perfectly science fiction time loop story thing now. (snerk) No it isn't science fiction but it was at least funny as hell at least some of the time. It was listed as a "science fiction disaster comedy" so ok. When Science Fiction gets too stuffy to occasionally embrace a sendup of the genre is taking itself too serious.
Buffy on the other hand. No. But then they also ran WWE "fights" on the "SyFy" channel and Ghost Hunters so who cares at that point. It isn't about ratings, every channel seems to have a compulsion to launch as one thing, heavily brand as that and then run entirely different crap. MTV used to be a radio station with video, are you old enough to remember that one? CNN was all news, not whatever crap they are putting up on that channel now several hours a night. CNNHN was just news, every thirty minutes, for those times when you didn't want to wait an hour while Larry King was interviewing some newsmaker (or celebrity) to find out what else was happening. A&E was Arts and Entertainment, highbrow arty crap, not Reality TV and zombies. History Channel ran documentaries, usually involving Hitler. Not even counting cases of poverty, like MSNBC being unable to afford weekend programming and falling back to reruns of Locked Up, that is at least sorta understandable.. but couldn't they run reruns of news sorta things, old Dateline episodes or something?
If "The Jews" run the media they must not be as smart as advertised because they are failing at branding. :)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 24 2018, @10:02AM
Buffy season 4 definitely had a sci-fi angle, and is far more appropriate for that channel than WWE and some of the other crap. Who's gonna complain about Merlin or Earthsea or something being on Sci-Fi?
I can't believe that there is a Sharknado 6 already. I've only seen the first 3.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 24 2018, @10:05AM
Technopagan, s02e11, the entirety of season 4... I'd say Buffy is at home on a science fiction related/tangential channel.
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