Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
Point two:
That seems to be a popular opinion of those of a certain political stripe. But that is not what caused the recession of interest in the Hugos. As already mentioned, the internet and fan's ability to communicate with each other makes the award less relevant.
You can tell by looking at the backlash of some to recent Hugo winners. They tend to focus less on details of the book/novella/story itself and instead focus on PC Culture and soforth.
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Actually, no.
The "politically driven" reactionary old geezer label is just an excuse from supporters of the selection clique.
The real issue is economic, as always.
Hugos haven't been relevant all century, and increasibgly PC since the 70's. But what raised the puppies ire was the realization that, after voting opened up to the internet, some authors noted it only took two hundred to three hundred votes to be a "Hugo Award Finalist", which could be faked for just a couple thousand bucks, which is less than a single add in a glossy trade mag.
And the publicity and sales value of a "Finalist" to say nothing of a "winner" made gaming the system pay off big time. A further look convinced these authors (and fans) that the system was in fact rigged against traditional SF and adventure SF stories in favor of the literary critics darlings, including stories no rational person would consider to be SF (I.E. the story is built aroubd a scientific concept or speculation, without which the story collapses or loses meaning.)
The puppies took arms and over three years or so pretty much proved their point.
(If they couldn't make added money from the Hugos tbey'd make darn sure nobody else could either. That's one way of leveling the playing field.)
An aside: Not that I particularly care, but that story of "lesbians in space" is it a story of lesbians being lesbians (a relationship story) that happens to take place in space or is it about humans dealing with life in space that happens to star lesbians? It makes a difference.
The latter is clearly SF, the former clearly not. Lois Bujold's ETHAN OF ATHOS dealt with a male-only society and how it could procreate. Likewise Leguin's LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, among many other stories, dealt with "unconventional" sexuality to general acclaim even from old foggies.
These days, there's this kneejerk reaction that *everything* that is contentious is *only* contentious intentionally and out of malice, with labels being bandied about immediately without bothering to consider that, hey, maybe the jerk has a point.