Is SF dying?

[pegasi&prefects]

I don't really see how Sad Puppies, an attempt to skew voting to fit a particular agenda, equates to donating to the Heart Foundation.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pegasi&prefects

Yeah. Vox Day isn't just some misunderstood conservative. Leaving aside all the purely sexualised hatred he and his friends spew, I'm not inclined to give my reading dollars to anyone who describes my beautiful, loving, gifted son as "less homo sapiens" than he is.

I don't require that my reading fully matches my principles. I mean, I'm a Quaker, and if I demanded that my reading reflects my beliefs in pacifism and equality... Well, I wouldn't be reading a lot of epic fantasy. But there ARE limits.

Thing is, I read books by white cishet men regularly, if they appeal to me. otoh, you read the comments on Sad Puppy posts, and they are rejoicing at keeping lesbians and trans people off their list, and swapping hints on avoiding accidentally reading something by a woman (beware those sneaky initials!)

It may have started as a mildly laudable attempt to widen the scope of nominated books, but Day's involvement and the agenda of the people who became involved made it clear that it's a politically motivated attempt to vote as a bloc to keep minorities and allies in their place.

You may be right about Sad Puppies and some of those involved. It could be that there was a hijacking of what you term "a mildly laudable attempt" for purposes of ultimately excluding minorities. But this accepts the existence of an initially laudable goal. So how, then, do we judge whether the hijacking succeeded? The only way I can think of is to compare the Sad Puppies List with the Hugo list, assuming that the Sad Puppy block did not succeed in altering the latter.

I am not in any sense seeking to defend Vox Day. Some of his views are abhorent and indefensible. I simply don't accept that everything he touches is automatically tainted with the same evil. In this case we are dealing with what books are nominated for an award.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by pegasi&prefects

It may have started as a mildly laudable attempt to widen the scope of nominated books, but Day's involvement and the agenda of the people who became involved made it clear that it's a politically motivated attempt to vote as a bloc to keep minorities and allies in their place.

Having watched it from the start, I believe the initial motivation, though couched in "no one loves the conservatives anymore!" rhetoric, was an attempt to gee up a bloc vote to keep minorities and allies in their place. I don't believe it was hijacked at all, I think it's just on course. It is thankfully not gaining an enormous amount of support, though enough to push other deserving (IMO) nominees off the ballot.

[pegasi&prefects]

Originally Posted by meeera

Having watched it from the start, I believe the initial motivation, though couched in "no one loves the conservatives anymore!" rhetoric, was an attempt to gee up a bloc vote to keep minorities and allies in their place.

I admit I was erring on the side of assuming good will when it's possibly not warranted.

To be clear, I am not talking about not reading books just because they are on the Sad Puppies list. Read what you like. If you truly think they are the best, vote for them. What I am wary of is playing into the agenda that books on the Sad Puppy list are more deserving of reading and votes because they are on that list, i.e. have been vetted by racist, homophobic misogynists who are organising to try to skew the voting.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pegasi&prefects

What I am wary of is playing into the agenda that books on the Sad Puppy list are more deserving of reading and votes because they are on that list, i.e. have been vetted by racist, homophobic misogynists who are organising to try to skew the voting.

For the record, I am not eligible to vote for the Hugo's nor have I had anything to do with Sad Puppies other than reading Brad Torgensen's post and the list of books.

Whilst there are plainly racists and misogynists who participated in this Sad Puppy list I very much doubt that all of them fall into one or both of those categories. I do not know what percentage are racists or misogynists, nor indeed do I know what ultimate influence they had on the final list.

[pegasi&prefects]

Then, just out of interest, what do you think is the purpose of Sad Puppies, if it's not to "push back" against women and minorities in SF? Assuming that people voting according to their own tastes is not some kind of communist conspiracy, obviously.

[pdurrant]

Please remember that discussion of Politics and Religion are banned in the main MobileRead forum. This discussion seems to be in danger of violating that ban, if it hasn't already.

Thank you.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Please remember that discussion of Politics and Religion are banned in the main MobileRead forum. This discussion seems to be in danger of violating that ban, if it hasn't already.

Thank you.

Agreed. I will leave the discussion here. I will not even attempt to have the final word.

[pegasi&prefects]

My apologies.

[fjtorres]

Yup.
Never a shortage of drama among SF writers or readers.

That's the kind of passion engendered by playing with ideas.

If it ever comes go it, the last two SF readers will still be locked in debate when the asteroid hits and all other genre readers are safely tucked away in their VaultTec underground shelters.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I feel that the 'real' SF has been dying for years. The 'golden years' in the 50's-70's and declining after that.

I have mixed feelings on that comment. It has already been mentioned that science fiction evolves with science, but it's also worth noting that a lot of the old works had less to do with science than many modern works and many old science fiction ideas are not even classified as science fiction anymore.

A lot of that old SF had to do with topics that we've long since moved on from. The modern world has a different view of space travel. Some of it is routine, like satellites and robotic science missions. Some of it we've all but given up on, such as manned exploration. The former is not science fiction, it is reality. The latter is as close to unicorns as you can get without abandoning reality altogether, short of orbital missions (of course). Even then, that old SF didn't really stick to science. More often than not, things were made up for interstellar travel and the sluggishness of travel within our solar system was usually ignored. We have also picked up a lot of new themes as well, such as artificial intelligence and bioengineering. Some of these are as scientific as the old works, preferring to focus upon the social. Others are quite bound by science.

Even so you have to consider that some forms of science fiction are not even classified as science fiction anymore. Those old SF mysteries, some of which are bound by science and some of which are unrealistic, are now just mystery or law stories. They'll still have forensic science, but there is nothing special about it. Ditto for a lot of the stuff that has to do with computers. I recall an old Asimov story about human computers which is laughable these day, yet computers and communications technologies are integrated into books of all forms these day.

[DrNefario]

I just wanted to add a quick note about the Sad Puppy slate last year:

- I don't know that it was particularly anti-women. I believe it was SP that got Toni Weisskopf of Baen her editorial nomination.
- Not everyone nominated had anything to do with the campaign. I understand Dan Wells caught some grief through association even though he was not personally involved in the campaign.

What was annoying about it to me was that it denied better works their time in the sun, and it was ultimately self-defeating as the mass of voters resented being told what to do. It's not that hard to get something nominated, especially in the shorter categories where there is a lot out there that few people have read and little consensus, and if people are voting on party lines rather than on actual merit, the results get very skewed. You don't need a very big special-interest group to get things onto the shortlist, but you end up with a terrible shortlist. We also had the Wheel of Time campaign last year, which didn't help matters. Luckily the novel category had a runaway winner of genuine quality.

I should say this is just my impressions as a Hugo voter, and things I've heard. I haven't especially investigated the whole thing.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

What was annoying about it to me was that it denied better works their time in the sun, and it was ultimately self-defeating as the mass of voters resented being told what to do.

It's clear why "traditional" sci-fi is becoming irrelevant. Real innovation and quality must emerge outside the "traditional" and incestuous (hugo) sci-fi community.

[catsittingstill]

I thought _Ancillary Justice_ showed real innovation and quality. Apparently most of the people voting on the Hugos thought so too--and the numbers suggest this includes about 2/3 of the new people brought in by the Sad Puppies and Wheel of Time campaigns (whether with or against in both cases.)

I'm a new Hugo voter. But I will be back. The Sad Puppies put works on the ballot, not because they loved the works, but because they wanted to make people outside their group unhappy, ("make our heads explode" was the phrase, and believe me, I've read their websites and comments, considered what they had to say there, and drawn my conclusions about their motivations based on that evidence.) So I will be back to express *my* opinion of what works deserve recognition.

L. Ron Hubbard got a Hugo nomination too, but it never went farther than that.

[catsittingstill]

And regarding the original topic--no, I don't think SF is dying. Anything but! I think it's not even clear that [SF book sales] is dropping since some of that is transferring to e-books, which don't seem to be included in the measures I have seen.

Of course, book reading in general is having to fight for a share of people's diminishing leisure time and disposable income, against things like cable TV, the internet, and video games, and there may be some drop in SF book reading as a result, but I wouldn't see that as declining interest in SF.