Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
That sounds good, but it doesn't seem to shake out that way in reality.
Find someone bemoaning the slate of finalists that isn't complaining because of political reasons.
Even in this thread, the negative comments tend to be:
What you don't see much of is 'book XXX really shouldn't have been nominated. What about book YYY?'
At least the Sad Puppies tried that. I had more respect for them than the Rabid ones. There I just disagree. The stuff they championed tended to be old fashioned throwback stuff. Like the Golden Age writer complaining about New Wave authors being nominated. Or New Wave writers trying to block Cyberpunk. Times change and the field has to move forward or stagnate and die.
It's like complaining that the Marvel movies aren't nominated for best picture.
Monster Hunter International is fun. But worthy of winning a Hugo? C'mon.
I read Messenger by Virdi and Wijeratne. I liked it. Not everything they nominated was unworthy.
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I think that you are avoiding the basic issue, that is to say that the Hugos is dominated by a clique of writers and voters with tastes that don't necessarily match the SF&F community. Your comment about Monster Hunters would be just as true if we were to talk about John Scalzi, who I happen to think is a pretty good writer, but not great. Yet Scalzi gets nominated or wins year after year. It can be fairly enlightening to count up the number of Hugo awards for novels by publisher over the last 15 to 20 years.
Yea, not everything Hugo finalist or winner is unworthy, but a whole lot are by writers who justifiable sink back into obscurity.