Hugo 2020 Award Winners

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Check Cthulhu 2020 No Lives Matter for sizing and other choices.

Awesome! If I suddenly stop posting, you know that I chose poorly.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

What make you assert that the 2020 Hugos weren't chosen on the basis of being the best stories?

Okay, since nobody has gone there:

1- The SF/F field is too big, too active for anybody to read *all* the new books coming out in a year. Without that, there can be no rational ranking of books by any meaning criteria. (This was true before the puppies.)

2- The term "best" is meaningless without several pages worth of qualifiers listing the criteria looked for and who gets to choose and who chooses the choosers. (The Video Awards, regardless of what one might think of the winners, are thoroughly transparent on all counts. Literary Awards? Not so much.) Best? Says who? Best, how?

3- For a long time now Hugo winners have ceased to be representative of the field with extensive swaths of titles being *excluded* solely because of origins, subjects, or author. Without reading or evaluating. The awards are issued by a tiny clique of self-selected "critics", a narrow-minded monoculture out of phase with the vast majority of readers, something demonstrated by the goading of the "puppy rebellion" when the clique chose to ignore its own processes and vacate a category rather than recognize a winner at odds with their prejudices.

Does anybody believe that voters would even consider, if they were coming to market today, works like STARSHIP TROOPERS, ENDERS GAME, FOOTFALL, THE GODS THEMSELVES, RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, TAU ZERO, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, STARTIDE RISING, or FOUNDATION'S EDGE, among many winners and finalists still readable and still popular among readers today? Some of those authors are villified regularly for a variety of resons having nothing to do with the stories, which are actually better written, more thoughtful and above all more popular than most of the recent award "winners".

Because, it should be noted, HUGOS were intended as a *popularity* contest among *readers*. In contrast to the NEBULA AWARDS which were intended as a recognition of craftmanship from the *authors*.

But popularity with one small clique is meaningless when any other clique can issue their own awards with equal standing (Dragon Awards, from the DragonCon crowd) or when readers find their reads on their own, without guidance from any self-appointed "influencers". Who can be and often are just shills, as exposed by the Rebellion.

The field has evolved and diversified far beyond what any of the cliques can credibly proclaim. So people mostly go on with their lives, ignore HUGOS, DRAGONS, and (unavoidably) NEBULAS.

The entire AWARD system has lost relevance. The Puppy Rebellion was simply the last spasm that proved the system was long dead, even if it hung around out of inertia.

So, going back to the OP: the awards are issued but nobody posts about them because they are as relevant to today's reader as, say, Lake Woebegon's Teacher of the year. Most people just don't care. (Sorry.) A popularity award for books that aren't actually popular isn't particularly newsworthy.

Most of us can find our reads just fine without "influencers" and most won't even *like* what the clique likes.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Okay, since nobody has gone there:

1- The SF/F field is too big, too active for anybody to read *all* the new books coming out in a year. Without that, there can be no rational ranking of books by any meaning criteria. (This was true before the puppies.)

2- The term "best" is meaningless without several pages worth of qualifiers listing the criteria looked for and who gets to choose and who chooses the choosers. (The Video Awards, regardless of what one might think of the winners, are thoroughly transparent on all counts. Literary Awards? Not so much.) Best? Says who? Best, how?

3- For a long time now Hugo winners have ceased to be representative of the field with extensive swaths of titles being *excluded* solely because of origins, subjects, or author. Without reading or evaluating. The awards are issued by a tiny clique of self-selected "critics", a narrow-minded monoculture out of phase with the vast majority of readers, something demonstrated by the goading of the "puppy rebellion" when the clique chose to ignore its own processes and vacate a category rather than recognize a winner at odds with their prejudices.

Does anybody believe that voters would even consider, if they were coming to market today, works like STARSHIP TROOPERS, ENDERS GAME, FOOTFALL, THE GODS THEMSELVES, RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, TAU ZERO, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, STARTIDE RISING, or FOUNDATION'S EDGE, among many winners and finalists still readable and still popular among readers today? Some of those authors are villified regularly for a variety of resons having nothing to do with the stories, which are actually better written, more thoughtful and above all more popular than most of the recent award "winners".

Because, it should be noted, HUGOS were intended as a *popularity* contest among *readers*. In contrast to the NEBULA AWARDS which were intended as a recognition of craftmanship from the *authors*.

But popularity with one small clique is meaningless when any other clique can issue their own awards with equal standing (Dragon Awards, from the DragonCon crowd) or when readers find their reads on their own, without guidance from any self-appointed "influencers". Who can be and often are just shills, as exposed by the Rebellion.

The field has evolved and diversified far beyond what any of the cliques can credibly proclaim. So people mostly go on with their lives, ignore HUGOS, DRAGONS, and (unavoidably) NEBULAS.

The entire AWARD system has lost relevance. The Puppy Rebellion was simply the last spasm that proved the system was long dead, even if it hung around out of inertia.

So, going back to the OP: the awards are issued but nobody posts about them because they are as relevant to today's reader as, say, Lake Woebegon's Teacher of the year. Most people just don't care. (Sorry.) A popularity award for books that aren't actually popular isn't particularly newsworthy.

Most of us can find our reads just fine without "influencers" and most won't even *like* what the clique likes.

An obvious sign of the apocalypse, fjtorres and I are in agreement on something.

Tor pushes the Hugo award and four of the six novels, including the winner are from Tor. Tor pretty much does everything right from the stand point of pushing their authors to the public, sending out news letters, giving away free books. In many ways they have taken over the mantle of Baen in that regard. The only problem I have with Tor is they don't put out many books that I actually want to read.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Okay, since nobody has gone there:

It wasn't a general question, but one to a specific member.

[ZodWallop]

I think you make two unrelated points. One of which is true and pretty much dismisses the other.

Point one:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The field has evolved and diversified far beyond what any of the cliques can credibly proclaim. So people mostly go on with their lives, ignore HUGOS, DRAGONS, and (unavoidably) NEBULAS.

The entire AWARD system has lost relevance.

That is true. Which is why all old-timey awards seem to be losing relevance. Not just the Hugos. Nobody is watching the Oscars either.

The internet and the increase in fandom has made it much easier to find what's good.

Point two:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The awards are issued by a tiny clique of self-selected "critics", a narrow-minded monoculture out of phase with the vast majority of readers...

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.

[fjtorres]

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.

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.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually, no.
The "politically driven" reactionary old geezer label is just an excuse from supporters of the selection clique.

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:

Sound dreadful. Politically correct and dull. One described as lesbians in space. All by women, one called Tamsyn.

They all sound terribly boring to me.

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.

[DiapDealer]

Mostly what I'm hearing from the naysayers is "you kids get off my lawn!"

That "Your Daddy's Scifi doesn't win awards anymore" is 1) painfully obvious; and 2) not remotely a bad thing in my opinion. Your Daddy's Scifi is still being written. Buy it, read it, love it. Just don't make the mistake of thinking all the stuff you like reading deserves an award. And don't be an ass and pout because something you don't care for DID win an award. It will be OK. The secret evil cabals running the various awards aren't murdering your favorite authors and destroying their works in progress. They're just picking other books to give awards to.

[pwalker8]

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.

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.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

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.

The Hugos are "dominated by a clique of writers and voters" who actually join the Worldcon.

But they're not a clique. They're just the people who like to join in. There's nothing exclusive about Worldcon membership.

You can join the next Worldcon now. DisCon III. Only $50 for a supporting membership, giving you nominating and voting rights in the Hugos, and a vote in the selection of the location of the 2023 Worldcon.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

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.

And they don't NOT necessarily match the SF&F community, either. The problem is that you (and others) are avoiding the basic issue that there IS no such thing as a prevailing SF&F community taste to match any more. As already noted, SF&F is too large and too diverse for there to be one general "taste" among fans.

A more accurate statement would be that the Hugos are dominated by writers and voters with tastes that don't match ALL SF&F fans. Which makes perfect sense, since the days of a tiny SF&F fan community who all value the same things have been gone for a long, long time. In those days, the tiny clique in charge of the Hugos was preventing anything that didn't meet their exacting standards (including works favored by the new clique) from making the cut. Then they got replaced by the future. And so it goes.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by issybird

And yet, your statement in a thread about Hugo winners sounds awfully like an assertion. What’s the relevance, otherwise?

Please stop digging this hole. It’s offensive and embarrassing.

...you and the horse you rode in on. I'll write what I write within the bounds of the rules of this forum.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

The notion that increasing diversity costs talent carries with it the implicit assumption that minorities are less talented than the people you are comparing them to.

Also, we should be clear, women, trans authors or books with gay characters might not be the best book for you, but some of us are rather enjoying FINALLY seeing ourselves reflected in the genres we read.

Not correct. Looking for the best book will produce the best book. (of course, what makes a book "best" is subjective).

Putting ANY other qualification on "best book" -- will thus likely NOT produce the "best book" but the "best book that is also <insert other criteria here>".

It is adding those other criteria to "best book" that explicitly assumes that <list of criteria> members aren't winning on "best book" merits.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

What make you assert that the 2020 Hugos weren't chosen on the basis of being the best stories?

I didn't make that assertion.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by leebase

I didn't make that assertion.

So your posts in a thread about the 2020 Hugo Award Winners weren't actually referring to the 2020 Hugo Award Winners?