Thread: Is SF dying?
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Old 02-13-2015, 10:47 AM   #273
Rev. Bob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla View Post
I return to the point that the Hugo ignored The Hunger Games. This was clearly a very readable book. The sales prove it. The biggest SF award totally missed the biggest selling SF book of the decade. That says something. And Hugo should be embarrassed and taking a good look at itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla View Post
And what about The Martian and Ready Player One, both great books. Have they been recognized by the Hugo? If not, bin the Hugo as irrelevant.

But these two works and others I have mentioned do show that great works of SF do still appear and that the genre is far from dying. But for conventional SF as headed by the Hugo and other traditional deciders of what is good, the future is not so good.
You appear to believe that the Hugo is administered like the Oscars, in that there is a static, shadowy group that decides the winners by fiat in a smoke-filled room. This is not the case. Anyone who wants to vote on the Hugos can do so, merely by paying for a supporting membership to Worldcon. I'm sure there are people who've been doing just that for years, just as any convention has its regulars, but it's open to everybody.

That's precisely why I find the whole idea of some conspiracy that awards the Hugo to "the right people" so bizarre. The voters are average fans. I don't see how much more open the process could get.
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