Hugo Awards Nerd Fight

[airboy]

There is a huge nerd fight over the Hugo Awards.

Basic story - some conservative/libertarian writers got mad at some of the Hugo winners.  They formed a counter-group called "sad puppies."  They got enough people to pay $40 to become World Con voters that they swept the nominations in several categories.  Angry liberal/TOR publisher editors are now campaigning to vote "no award" in multiple categories.

Pick your poison on which version of the story you would like to hear.  The Entertainment Weekly story was so off base they retracted it.  So the best Liberal slant I can find is:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/04/08/_2015_hugo_awards_how_the_sad_and_rabid_puppies_took_over_the_sci_fi_nominations.html

If you want a conservative slant read:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/04/hugo-awards-nominations-swept-by-anti-sjw-anti-authoritarian-authors/

If you want a rant from a founder of Sad Puppies which is hilarious - read:
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/09/a-response-to-george-r-r-martin-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/

If you don't have a dog in this fight - oops a "Sad Puppy" in the fight you will enjoy the hysteria of people with way, way too much time on their hands who are talking past each other.

[Bison]

Haha.  This is great.  I'd read about it in a few other places and all I can say is it's about time.

[airboy]

This fight has captured my attention.  I've read scores of articles about this.

What I've decided is that for a mere $40 you can vote for a Hugo Award!!!!  Awesome!!!  If you pay, you also get to download most of the publications that get ranked in the top 5!!  Also Awesome!!!

So for mere money I can vote for something that was won by authors who drove my interest in SF/Fantasy.  I can farm out my vote in categories that I know nothing about to my family members (wife/nephew & his husband for TV shows for example)!!!  I never knew that I could actually vote for something where my vote could matter that I care about - a lot in literature, movies and the like!!

[Nefaro]

Good for them. 

The Hugo awards were obviously just one small snapshot of the many social and academic areas rife with intolerance, so common today.

[Cyrano]

Those identified by their detractors as CHORFs (a fun little construction, that) are caught on the horns of a dilemma, viz.:  either the previous balloting system was somehow wrong and should not have been used for the years that it was or the previous balloting system was right and their grievance with the Sad Puppies must be about results rather than process.

I'll cop to being, at best, a peripheral "sci-fi" guy, but the self-seriousness with which many comport themselves on this issue is amusing.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[airboy]

I will be buying a $40 associate membership, getting the downloads, and voting on Hugos this year.

I will also probably be farming out my vote in some categories (Fan blogs, editors, etc....) and will be soliciting for input on grogheads.  The vote on Novel, Short Story, Movie, etc.... will be mine, all mine.

[Tpek]

Guess I'm completely out of the loop.
I'd have thought the politics of such awards would be based upon personal relationships between authors and such, and not on ideology 

[JasonPratt]

Yeah, I know some liberal authors, at least one a good friend of mine, who from their comments rather completely missed the point of the demonstration. It wasn't to force conservative ideology authors into the awards; it was to highlight the broken methodology.

(Not that I participated; I only found out after the fact.)

[Cyrano]

To some -- and I'm not in total agreement as to the severity of the problem -- the Hugos had become a cultural cul-de-sac for the self-righteous, navel-gazing, SJW types.  Bemoaning heterosexist patriarchy and praising "diverse" authors irrespective of their merits.

I"m a David Drake kind of guy, so I was never likely to see the problem, such as it might be, and I've little interest in "Dr. Who" since the fellow with the scarf hung it up.

Still, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm proud to be friends with a couple of Hugo-award winning editors (female), some of whom have been those pilloried by the Sad Puppies as undeserving...

Immense tempest in a teensy nerd teapot...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[airboy]

Hugo Awards Package was available for download when I got back from the Danube.

I've gone through all of the categories excepting the book categories (the main ones in my opinion).  Here are my thoughts so far:
Artists
Kirk DouPonce = Absolutely Awesome
Allan Pollack = 2nd
Nick Greenwood = 3rd
Julie Dillon = No Award
Carter Reid = No Award

Fan Artist
Brad Foster = No Award
Elizabeth Leggett = No Award
Ninni Aalto = No Award
Spring Shoenhuth = Impressed with Jewelry = 1.

Editor Long Form:
Toni Weisskopf – Baen = 1st
Anne Sowards = No Award
Jim Mintz = Baen = 2nd
Sheila E. Gilbert = DAW
Vox Day = No Award

Editor Short Form:
Don't generally read this stuff so not voting.  Valid Hugo category so I'm not "no awarding" it.

Semi-Pro Zine; Pro-Zine = should not be a Hugo category.  No award for all.

Best Fan Writer = not voting.  Don't care enough to gain knowledge.

Best Fan Cast = Not voting.  I don't care about this and don't want to spend the time to look at them.

Graphic Novel:
Rat Queens = 1
Everything else = no award.  Others are not fun reads.

Best Dramatic Presentation Long-Form:
Guardians of the Galaxy = 1st
Captain America = 2nd
Everything else = no award

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Doctor Who: "Listen" = 3
The Flash: "Pilot" = 1.
Game of Thrones: "The Mountain and the Viper" = no award.  Rambling with gratuitous sex & violence.
Grimm: "Once We Were Gods" = 2.  Supernatural lite.
Orphan Black: "By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried", = 4

 
Best Related Work:
Michael Z. Williamson - Wisdom From My Internet = No Award.  Read it and not impressed.  Not sure
   how this would help anyone who is writing in the field or help someone understand the field.
"Why Science is Never Settled" – Tedd Roberts – BAEN = Short discussion of how science is conducted
   accessible to a layperson.  Discussion is accurate and at least useful to non-scientists. = 1.
"THE HOT EQUATIONS: THERMODYNAMICS AND MILITARY SF" – Ken Burnside – interesting but limited
   take on how current technology and understanding of thermodynamics could set up near future
   military SF.  The push here is "near future" and not far future if there are technological breakthroughs yet unknown at this
        time. = 2
"Letters from Gardner" – Lou Antonelli – Merry Blacksmith Press – difficult to classify.  How he got into
   writing SF, guidelines on writing SF, some of his stories, his life in general. = 3
"Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth" – John C. Wright – Castalia
   House = OK general philosophy applied loosely to some well-known authors. = 4.

Best Short Story
"On A Spiritual Plain", Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
"The Parliament of Beasts and Birds", John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
"A Single Samurai", Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)
"Totaled", Kary English (Galaxy's Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
"Turncoat", Steve Rzasa = OK at best.  Not really a "hugo quality story."

[airboy]

I'm finished with the short stories:

Best Short Story
"On A Spiritual Plain"=2 – well done.
"The Parliament of Beasts and Birds"=5 not impressed.
"A Single Samurai", Steven Diamond = 3.
"Totaled", Kary English =1 really good, sad & don't ever want to read it again.
"Turncoat", Steve Rzasa = OK at best.  Not really a "hugo." =4

[airboy]

And I'm done.  Novels:

Best Novel
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie = No Award = Hated it.  Read 10% and quit.
The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson = No Award.  Hated it.  Read 10% and quit.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison = 2.  This was very good.  Recommend - but read the Amazon description to see if you like the genre.
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, = No Award = Horrible retelling of the Cultural Revolution in China. 
Skin Game by Jim Butcher = 1 = I read about 60% and put it down.  This is a vote for the body of his work.  I liked the Harry Dresden books up until he just got too overpowered.  I have this problem with superhero characters also.  Writing is good - but after the first 8-10 books in the series Harry had picked up way too much power.

[JasonPratt]

Coincidentally, I happen to own the first 8 or so Dresden novels somewhere, but have never gotten around to reading them. This reminds me I should rectify that situation eventually.